So yeah, the two would cancel each other out. This is exactly how they create usable mana areas in outer space, they cancel out some of the negative void with positive things (living things like plants and people mostly).

Well in space there is a lot more nothingness than in a city. I assume it is more than twelve times as much.

I never made that point.

No, since concentration camps where tens of thousands of people died are at a 3.....

I think you're low-balling a bit. According to the sidebar that's more like a 5, 6 for the worst ones such as Auschwitz. I wouldn't think a death camp where thousands died would be less then 4.

Rating 3:
These domains are created by a significant event in the recent past (usually within the last century). The event may be long over, but the area still reflects the event in some way. Examples include the site of a major battle or the ruined land from an environmental accident. An important cathedral or monastery where a great spiritual event occurred also qualifies.

Rating 6:
These domains were created by historic events of epic scope that have significance to most of humanity. The blast sites of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are Rating 6 domains, as is the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz and the Native American "Re-Education Center" at Abilene.

Sorry, my bad.

Still, there is a good point to be made from that. There are maybe... what, a dozen places in the world that would qualify for this level of BC? Based on that criteria anyway, there are more based on 'natural' ebb and flow, and various other things. If that's the case, I hardly think the 3-4 suggested earlier for a hospital seems reasonable. A normal hospital generates almost as much disturbance as things that were among the greatest (Big, not good) events in the last century?

It puts a bit of perspective on things.

Would Cherry Creek Lake near Denver, where Dunkelzahn's 12-hour interview by Holly Brighton took place, qualify as a Rating 6 BC, then? Or Mt. Fuji, where Ryumyo Awakened and officially started the Awakening?

I doubt it. While it was a fairly big event, I don't think it was of the same.... type as the others. It was big/important and perhaps even world changing, but I don't think it had the kind of emotional content required for a BC. Actually, because of the lower level of emotion, I wouldn't think it would even be a BC 1.

I think another contributing factor to this is the fact that not all that many people were actually at the lake. Most people who were highly emotional (Angry, happy, whatever) were sitting in their homes watching TV. Now, maybe if you had all the people who were mad at his apointment in a single place at a single time while watching that interview, you would likely get a BC of 2 or so (like the rock concert), but it wouldn't last past that time at all.

Edit: My SR history isn't the best, but night of rage was a specific spot right? I'd imagine that would be an exceptionally high BC. Likely 5. World Trade Centers would likely be a 4.

An hosptital is continuously generating an emotional load, that's why the background count stay high, it is replenished. If the hospital stopped it's activity the BG count would probably drop back to normal in no more than a few years, while the exemples given can persist for a century or even longer.

I think 6 way too low.

The 3 major Reynhard action camps - Treblinka II, Sobibor, Belzec. Auschwitz. Basement of the Lubyanka, Katyn Forest, Solovetsk Special Camp, The Danube-Black Sea Canal, Kolyma camp, the Vorkuta Gulag death camps, Choeung Ek and S-21, ....

Yeah, I have no idea what any of those are.

Various concentration/death camps where thousands upon thousands met their end. Spill enough blood in one place and the ground's going to become (un)hallowed.

Right, I kind of guessed that much at least, but it lacks a point. I don't see how 'list of deathcamps' is linked to '6 is way too low'. It requires some form of argument. Without that, all I can say is that those others are likely 5s.

I don't think you're actually reading what's being put down, then.

You have a list of concentrated areas where literally thousands of people died in pain, misery and in many cases, pants-wetting fear. If a normal hospital rates a four at most, then these places - that are meant for nothing but death - would rank high above that.

Do you see the point now?

Shadowrun ratings tend to scale up rapidly past rating 4, at least in descriptive effect. It's not linear.

Remember, a 4 in most things is "above average", where a 6 is "among the best or worst in the world".

Which, incidentally, would make ratings 7+ all that more "extreme".



-k

Not really, because I said that a hospital shouldn't rate a 4 because that is too high. They should be a 2 or maybe a 3 at most. The person who said they should be 4 was throwing out a rating 2-3 for an office building just because it is an office building. Besides, it seems to be kind of logarithmic about what is required to go from one rating to another.

Not much point in continuing, then.

@KarmaInferno - That's why I'm figuring the death camps and locations listed would have lasting 6's or 7's because of the sheer naughtiness that happened there.

If office buildings have 2-3 BC.. how do WageMages ever work?
Most of them don't have 8 Magic and Sorcery 6. They're modest Magic 3, sorcery 2-3 guys.

If an office building had a 3 BC, they basically would not be able to cast anything but the most minor of spells.

The vast majority of office buildings shouldn't even register a change in background count. Even in the Shadowrun universe.

Perhaps a particularly draconian and oppressive office might score a 1. It should underscore just how bad a workplace it is, to even have that 1.




-k

R6, Aspected for Nazi-mages.

EDIT: If it were R7, it'd be a mana warp and be destructive to all magic in the area.

Not that I'm arguing for an office to have 3 BC, that's silly, but magic aspect is a consideration of corporations. If they intend to use a wagemage they'll likely invest a little in making the area aspected, or brought back to nominal levels. Domains are easier to manipulate then ebbs/voids/warps/surges/storms.

Well, on the other hand...

I recently played a mission where we ran into an office surrounded by a Background Count that kept getting worse as we got closer, up to like rating 4 right next to the building. Some seriously bad mojo was going on there.

But as soon as we actually got INTO the building, the background count vanished.

They had initiate mages with Cleansing on duty inside, you see.



-k

Wuxing does exactly this with their buildings. Then they have their feng shui master come in and aspect the geomancy to the tradition of their wagemages. Now your Magic 3 wagemage is suddenly magic 6. This is why I don't like using background counts -- because now the team is suddenly facing Force 12 stunballs.

Wrong. He gets +3 Dicepool bonus for using Magic and +3 Dicepool for Drain, not +3 Magic. So he'd still only be able to overcast to 6, but it'd be way, way easier for him to do.

yes sir you are correct!

Ever read Brin's "Thor Meets Captain America"?

Frame three.

I stand corrected. Still makes TPK more likely.

Magic would make runs impossible, anyway. Mages have a response time of about 30 sec and they can only be countered by mages.
This means they are able to follow the runners to their hideout and then the swat team may be sent.

Can't read street signs on the astral.

Sure, but that doesn't mean you can't figure out where you are. Areas I am familiar with I don't read street signs for now, and yet I still find my way around. 3 blocks north of El Camino and 23rd works fine. Or use a spirit as a beacon. Stay here Mr. Spirit and follow them if they leave, I'll find you in a few hours. A few astral peaks here and there, oh they are north of us, a few blocks east etc. Though given how ridiculous high force spirits are you could follow them have the spirit manifest and kill them all.

Street sign? What's that? I know my way around town and I don't know the name of a single street. (Well, okay, maybe the one I live on)

Really, it isn't that hard to know where you are without the street signs "Following them north from the compound...They just turned right, looks like Lexington. Okay, just went down a side ally, looks like a bar and a restaurant on either side of it...etc." Or heck, just have the mage cast a low level spell at each corner so the signature can act as road signs. Or summon a spirit and give it the order to lead someone to your position.

It is true, thanks to the mage response time measured in seconds, it would be impossible for a runner to ever hit a place without a mage on their side (Unless they manage to set off 0 alarms)

Intelligently managed the response would be pretty ugly, as you have mages on shift in your HQ whose purpose is to go out and look at alarms at important sites with their bound spirits, a summoned spirit and a few watchers. If it's major they get help from the other mages and their array of spirits.

This tends to make games unfun.

Lets be honest, intelligent "full war" style security tends to make games unfun period. Because against overlapping fields of fire, intelligent response and containment doctrines, relatively inexpensive yet comprehensive sensor nets, deliberate maximization of effects, and so much more...your going to get fried unless your the best of the freaking best. I'm generally of the opinion you only turn on full war when the players want it and the run should have it (dubai defen exhibit, yes; extract bob from accounting from cubeville? Probably not)

Fun aside, inspired by the talk on secure buildings:

I worked on the construction planning & management team on a major tower they had been planning to build as part of the Palm Island, Dubai.

The tower project was ultimately canceled, but if it had been built it would have been one of the tallest buildings in the world, standing around 2500 feet high with 200 floors. (at the time I was on the project, later I understand they had pushed the design to 4500 feet high.)

The interesting part was, on the blueprints I had access to at the time there were areas in the corners of several floors of the building completely blacked out, by order of the Dubai security authority. Just giant black inked areas.

However, the blacked out areas had their own independent power supplies, access routes, and had heavily reinforced superstructures. They were also situated at about the right elevations to mount anti-aircraft defenses.

Now, I never did confirm this is what the blacked out areas were actually for, but it's fun to speculate.



-k

Or have the mage sustain a mana based spell and follow the trail.


More and more buildings will be designed like that after 9/11. It's not that hard to speculate.

May I have a rules quote on this? I do not recall a rule stating that a sustained mana spell let a trail.

Here we go:



-CJ

OK, so the mage is tracking the link from him to his own spell? I suppose that could work. I'm slow, so what are the spells can possibly be used in this manner?

Yes, I think that's what Neraph had in mind. Basically any sustained mana spell, that can reasonably target something on the astral, should work for this, for instance a Mana Barrier.

But the backtracking is really slow (Assensing + Intuition (5, 1 hour) Extended Test). Plus, to use astral tracking I think you have to project astrally again, although I'm not 100% sure on that.

-CJ

Answers in red inside the quote, so dont have to have so many quotes.

The caster better also hope the drone isn't outfitted with Nonconductive Armor 10, which is pretty cheap, considering.




-k

For the backup spirits that very much depends on the preparation time of the mage:
Summon: Complex Action
Order: no Action but I could have sworn it was a Simple Action
Spirit: Materializing Complex Action.
If ambushed, by that time the other characters usually have dealt with the threat or the encounter moves into TPK territory. At that point a high force Spirit is just the right tool. But usually in those situations I'd just go for the Stun Ball.

@KarmaInferno: Why would the caster need protection from electricity? Lightning Bolt is a single target spell, and you can always put the Ball Lightning spell in a position where it won't harm the caster's team or himself.

Thats why i would more likely take acid or maybe light spell for taking out drones.


Read again, it was "hope the drone doesn't have that.

woops

Also, the OR for drones was raised to 6+ according to my text.

Though, reviving the original topic of Control Thoughts and the discussion of BC leads me back to my point on this matter last time we went though this.

Mages see emotions as actual things which effect the world. Most people seem to think of a mage's combat power as if they're just as callous as any other sociopathic runner, even though they shouldn't be. They're awakened. Enlightened. So forth.

So, using Control Thoughts as a combat spell.. going into another person's mind, taking it from them and forcing them to kill their friends or themselves. Emotionally, this total betrayal of the self by the mind is one of the most terrible things which a person could be party to. It's like, not just killing them but shitting into their soul. There really isn't a faster path for a mage to becoming Twisted than perpetuating mass suicides and making best friends and partners murder each other.

Besides, you kill a guy -> murder scene. BC 1. Not terrible, but you feel what you did.

Yes it originally was, but it was dialed back to 5+ soon after.

I was actually thinking of using a sustained mana spell to leave a trail through the Astral to the location, not leave the spell somewhere and track the trail back.

More like walking around "painting" a trail with the mana as opposed to dropping a ball and having a string attached to it.

I'd suggest using something like Detect Magic, Detect Life, Combat Sense, or even casting Control Actions on yourself and guiding yourself through the Astral after your target. Then after they stay put you just drop back to your body, stop sustaining the spell, and follow the streak on the astral back to where they were.

And @ OR, all my mages are statistically supposed to get 6 or more successes with their Spellcasting Tests, so OR isn't really a problem. YMMV I guess on that one.

All you mage character have power foci 6, or did you mean only in specifig categories of spells?

Even with a dice pool of 18 only half the time you get 6 or more hits.