Even Better when you add ritual magic to the list and can use that 35-40 seconds to take over someone, anyone.

oh yes and the average person knows this, they know ALL the ins and outs of magic and can make a logical unemotional decision when stressed...

(Emphasis mine) I was unaware that everyone had 40k to toss on an animal (much less a Restricted one with Availability 14), and I didn't know that all shopkeepers only had Force 4 Wards.

The QFT probably wasn't strictly necessary.

Anyhow...alright, further checking shows that yes, it is highly noticeable. So, there is that going. at least the bad guys raping your mind will be something you can notice. Which still isn't going to help the public perception of them. Admittedly, gameplay wise, its does make the spell weaker.

As for the optimistic future of humanity: Despite the world's ability survive several drastic events, that has not naturally made humanity (or metahumanity) any less prone to fear mongering. I believe one of the recent articles of fluff was that technomancers created a mass population scare not so long ago, just on the concept that they were "different" and could do with their mind what a script kiddy could do with 50,000 worth of gear and agents/programs. Metahumans still remember the night of rage in Seattle, and the Brackhaven administration pretty much won on a "them trolls/elves/dwarves/orks is not like us normal folk, and they need a tight leash on them." In the entertainment industry, elves are portrayed as sinister, arrogant, scheming bastards using forces beyond the ken of humans or the ravishingly beautiful rebel-daughter of a similar parent, who will become the protagonists supporting female after he corrects her in human virtues. Orks play the roles of the faceless mooks, with the exception of the ones that break from the "bad' way of being orky to help the protagonists out. Lots of metas are still corralled by dint of economic and social policy into the ghettos. The cops hassle orks just because. Most Trolls have to work manual labor and low grade security. Elves are the classic public concept of "that rich arrogant guy" taken to extremes.

And all of that is from the core book.

So, while humanity may not be going apocalyptic over these events, there is still a definite trade in fear mongering and "different = bad until proven otherwise." And you can definitely expect that when you start passing into the realm of invasion of the sanctity of the mind, different is going to be seen as moving from bad to plain evil. People can understand 'guy shoots me, I die" even if its a fireball or a manabolt. They are inundated with that basic rule through media or life daily, and have 6000 years of playing by those rules. That's just a thug. But mind control? Wooah, hold on nelly...that's the stuff of horror films. Despite what the laws and punishments may be, if you want to show someone is real bastard in a movie, even circa 2010, you don't just have him kill someone. You have him mess with their head in a personal way that is disturbing un-normal. That's the difference between hannibal lecter and "some bad guy from die hard who shot the hostage."


Some of the most telling lines about public perception of magic in the core book (page 40, john q public) are present in the part where they say that people have hatred and and fear because of things like "astral snooping and mind control" and that there is increasing pressure to regulate and monitor spells especially those "related to combat or anything to do with the mind." There is also substantial writing in the same two paragraphs about superstition and paranoia, as well as religious opposition and qualification concerning magic that indicate that by and large there is still plenty of social fear of mages in general.

So, in summary, you have a world that is still definitively subject to fear and suspicion, especially of outsiders (despite, or possibly because of, the events so far), is canonically conerned with mages, and counts mind control as right up there with, if not worse than, attempted murder. You can bet your ass that if a mage leaves any trace of mental manipulation, he is in for a more serious response than a similar mundane approach.

I believe it is now. Very well said.

Actually I'd be more surprised they know that it was that animal that caused their wards to go down.

If you're willing to tolerate giving them several hours warning, and hope they don't go step into a decent background count or something.

double post.

I'd be shocked if they actually had force 4 wards to begin wtih. I'd be expecting force 2-3, as putting them up is actually kinda expensive. Unless you're running a very high end shop....

"these are not he droids you're looking for"

Spoken by the most evil character in the film... oh no wait, the most evil character just killed people, the good guys were the ones messing with people's minds.



It would be at best premeditated assault, and even that is questionable, as presently assault requires the application of some level of physical force. Also its no harder to track an uncleaned mannaball then it is an uncleaned mind probe, or control thoughts.

Ward trips, mage is alerted, mage sends bound spirit to investigate and report back. Bound spirit shows up, and sees background count of some sort off center around a given customer, and works out the customer isn't the one makeing it. Spirit reports back, mage calls store owner, store owner looks at tapes, at the time index indicated, and see's a lizard on the person in question, forwards a copy to the mage, or other paranormal expert, because the ward was insured, and the insurance company wants to know why they are paying. The creature is identified. The individual who brought it in is sued by the insurance company to recover losses, and that person's sin is also checked to see if proper permits for such an animal are in place. if they are not, that information is forwarded to Lonestar, and charges are laid.....

You'd better REALLY want that lizard.

The 'most evil' person in those films also lied, manipulated, and deceived his way into engineering a war that killed millions, simply so he could seize power. I'm fairly certain this involved more than a few Mind Tricks.

But you also make my point. In the Star Wars universe, the Jedi ability to influence minds is feared and hated by quite a large percentage of the non-Force using population.

There are huge swaths of the Star Wars historical timeline where Jedi are actively hunted or shunned, and not really because they swing lightsabers. It's the Mind Trick that people get all up in arms about.

Fear and suspicion are not rational or logical. The fact that a Manabolt is more effective and less costly drain-wise is irrelevant to this.



-k

A couple things to think about:

There should be a difference made between influence and control thoughts. If done right influence won't even be noticed.

You could even drug the guys you controlled thoughts on and good luck having them remember it (though with image links that becomes a bit harder if they do a play back).

From our perspective we are talking about things that are not possible and drives a horror into all of us. It could be different from their perspective as mental manipulations have been around for 40 years and if anything the human animal is adaptable (though playing on fears a time honored tradition of anyone wanting power over them).

With the invention of siemse/BTL the idea that your mind is a safe haven "may" not be as much as a big deal. Since if you slot a chip, there is a very real if unlikely chance that it does the same thing as the spells we are talking about.

Also people need to consider how much data is just floating around with AR. Pretty much your entire life could be put on display for anyone that is good at digging out information. How would this affect opinions of it?

400 is a R4 Ward that'll last for weeks - probably over a month. Not really that expensive at all unless you're a mom-and-pop store, which generally don't even exist in the Sixth World.

Do you bring up asinine problems like that for everyone who considers Astral Hazing? What about cyberzombies in your world? Do they get picked up by corporate radar the second they touch a street corner too?

EDIT: Heck, with the relatively low cost of Wards I'd think there'd be a savings reward from your insurance company for having one in place - like getting security cameras and other things of that nature these days.

Do you ask stupid counter questions each time someone says something you disagree with?

As for a cyberzombie anyone with any form of awakening is going to have a bad feeling with that kind of stuff anywhere near them due to background count, the psychic stink coming off one of them is almost palpable to a non awakened.


I would also point out that your drastically under pricing a ward considering a mage can and will charge a packet for that kind of always on quick response security

First off, don't immediately jump to personal attacks. It's unbecoming.

Secondly:

So, considering it takes one hour per point of force, a mage would charge 400 for a F4 Ward. That's straight from the book.

And lastly, it's not a good idea to close your argument with a sentence fragment that makes virtually no sense.

No, but I also don't argue for wards to be a ubiquitous as many people on dumpshock do. Anyone with astral hazing should crash the vast majority of the wards they walk through, as most will be force 3 or less, ie average magic score or less.

Suppose that's an option, if the meet isn't in a public place like 95% of meets are. But then again, a drone really isn't that hard of a thing to deal with.

Yeah, consider that a mundane would more or less need to guess at random the right place to take the picture, and even if the mundane did manage to get the picture (Okay, maybe not so hard, likely a good idea of the right room at least) you still need a mage to be able to identify the signature at all. So, back to "magic must defeat magic"

Okay, so, the fact that "Mage" automatically equals "Enemy's most dangerous weapon" doesn't raise some "Mages are overpowered" alarm bells? You're claiming that mages aren't overpowered because mages are targeted first because mages are automatically the most powerful opposition.

And for all the other arguments I've seen about 'oh, you can drop them easier with stunbolt' you're thinking far too limited. Control someone, and you haven't just gotten rid of an enemy, you've gained an ally. Suddenly the corp sec guy can be ordered to send the reinforcements to the opposite side of the building. Suddenly the firewatch guy that you controlled can open up full auto on his buddies that are taking cover with him. Get the corp sec guy to call the spider and open some doors without raising alarms. So, it has more combat options than a stunbolt, and far more out of combat options. Sure, you pay for it with a bit higher drain, but that's the way things go. You don't see sammies not buying good ammo because it costs more than regular ammo.

Re: OP Mages.

Yes, mages are OP. And they are meant to be. Pretty much every bit of canon references exactly how awesome mages are. And how uncommon they are. So, by the creators' definition, they are meant to be OP.

As a story-driven PnP game, shadowrun does not inherently have to deliver class balance, because the players and the GM balance their own game. Unless your playing a dps vs hp game where everything is specifically tailored to keeping the classes precisely even or precisely mutually supporting, the likelihood of everything being balanced is pretty low to begin with. And frankly, anyone who can conjure raw spitting death, draw out the very spirits of things, travel to different planes of existence, and a million other things leaps and bounds beyond the capabilities of technology through extension of their living will IS going to be overpowered in any game where the freedom to act beyond narrow mechanical confines is allowed.

Which is why it falls to the GM to make sure he has appropriate responses. Because you can damn sure bet the CEOs, heads of security, Mr. Js, law enforcement, fixers, and just about anybody who's anybody on a shadowrun is going to take specific precautions against these individuals who they KNOW are devastatingly OP. There's every reason to believe that the mundane world has spent copious amounts of time and nuyen to try and find a way to negate the Awakened. That can be as simple as "if any enemy magic is detected, all gloves are off...go ahead and toss the grenades in" or elaborate partnered over watch schemes with backups and failsafes.

So the argument has changed from 'Mages aren't overpowered' to 'of course they're overpowered, balance is impossible and mages should be awesome.'

*shrug* Don't really know how to respond. I suppose if you're okay with a lack of balance, then there really isn't much point talking about balance.

Nice to know that our ruleset released in 2005 has the same level of sophistication as a game released in 1979. Hooray!

That's what we like to call progress my friend.

Edit: As we all know, rules have to evolve to improve, and as we also know, evolution takes millions of years, and there is almost no detectable change between a few generations.

Sometimes I wonder if that what things like astral hazing are about. They know it is unbalanced so they try to patch it with crap like that, instead of fixing the core problems.



Sure maybe, but at the same time balance can be taken too far. Don't balance out all the uniqueness of a game while you try to make things balanced. Still there are a ton of areas SR4 could have worked on to better balance the game while keeping the unique flavor of the archtypes.

Its not so much "No one should care about balance" as an admission that there is no, and probably should not be according to the IP, mechanical way to bring mages back down into the realm of balanced.

So, turn the fluff aspects of the IP that make them mechanically imbalanced into their actual balancing act. Simply put, let that unique set of godlike powers bring the appropriate attention, wariness, and fear that it deserves. Of course, that requires flexible, intuitive, and creative adaptation, and cannot be defined by a threshold test or a specific skill. Fortunately, by being a PnP, SR is posied to allow this through virtue of there being a GM.

My favrite use so far was to clear out a R&D room we needed to jack something from by making all the researchers think they needed to go to the bathroom.

Ever see what happens in most office buildings when every toilet is flushed at once?

Hint: Most commercial lot waste water systems are built based on the expected maximum likely volume. Which is generally only a fraction of the actual total possible volume.

The things you learn in commercial construction management...






-k

Eh, there were only three in that game. Interesting food-for-thought though.

I don't feel bad that my controller can't dish out as much damage as the striker in my group. The striker doesn't complain that he can't damage multiple opponents and inflict conditions on enemies. The defender doesn't complain that he can't do either of those things. No one complains that we can't heal or help others the way the leader does -- we just beg for more .

Balance doesn't mean uniqueness is gone. Most of the setting stuff exists IN SPITE of the rules. So why try and hamper the rules/setting to fit with each other. SR seriously needs to grow up and make a decision about what sort of game it is on the GNS spectrum. According to the posters on this thread Narrativism is most important to them. So we need about half as many rules as we currently have and better support for story stuff such as the Missions/Personal Missions structure of Duty and Honour or the interpersonal conflict systems of Smallville or even WFRP 3ed.

Personally I have no problem separating rules from setting so I'm more Gamist (as I suspect Karoline is). So a balanced system like D&D4 is a much better ruleset for me. The rules are the rules. They don't define fluff or the way the world works. They are a system to enjoy in its own right, at appropriate moments, but it does not dictate RP or setting.

SR is like Exalted -- terrible steaming piles of shit rules that are semi-Simulationist while pretending to be a mongoloid mix of Narrativism and Gamism. Essence and Essence Motes are good examples for both systems. They are both quantifiable by the residents of the setting but were created purely as a Game construct. So they are a bastard mix of Simultionism and Gamism. Whereas a Narrativist would say: "Fuck essence, that extra aug would make your character so cool, go ahead and add it!"

Balance is simply a way of saying, "We don't want one particular character type to always dominate game play".

Balancing character types based on purely numbers is a frustrating and fruitless task.

You balance based on overall effectiveness. Which is more of an art than a science.



-k

1. 4e D&D well it is balanced better than SR4, but it only works as long as people don't abuse the system. The 15 tons of errata fixing exploits kind of proves my point, and they have not caught them all. Last time I checked their are still multiple builds on the char ops boards with ridiculous 1,000 DPR set ups, while others who don't go that extreme might be hanging out at a 100DPR or less for their same role build.

2. D&D4e IMO proved my point. A ridiculous amount of uniqueness fell out of the game in their quest for balance. Until the recent Essentials thing and PH3, every class was virtually identical. I hit for 1dX and minor effect is tacked on, sure strikers had some damage adders, defenders had marking etc. But at the end of the day over 1/2 my players were bored with the classes since they all felt the same to them. Yes anecdotal evidence does not prove much, but wotc own marketing research backs it up which is why they have come out with essentials.

I am not going to comment much on your GSM stuff, because I don't really buy into it much. I think it is a useful tool, but players fall into far too many in between areas that trying to target an exclusive point like Gamism is not worthwhile.

The only reason I play Shadowrun is because it isn't Dungeons and Dragons or World of Darkness. WoD was way too emo for me (I've never seen someone who wasn't emo who ran it, and the majority of the playerbase was the same) and D&D turned sour in 4th Ed. I don't really know how to explain it, but the game lost all feeling for me in 4th Ed. I think it was something about like 30+ goblins being a CR 1 encounter. I prefer the more realistic games as opposed to the Heroic Hack-n-Slashers.

I mean, sure, you can fight 30 corpsec in Shadowrun, but they have a much higher degree of lethality in this game.

Well in 4e D&D a bunch of minions might be a CR1 encounter, but the average Goblin has so many damn hit points it takes forever to kill one. 4e D&D kind of reminded me of old MMOs where past level X you needed a group to beat up on the random orc, or wolf that was threatening you. I personally love minions and overuse them. That gives a more old shcool flavor to me when fighting orcs and goblins, one hit and they die. None of this at level 5 you are fighting a room of 5 duerger with 60-100 HP each, when your striker is hitting for 3d8.

I also abhor how ever since WoW especially, and since slightly before it, a group consists of:
1) A Tank.
2) DPS.
3) Heals.

It takes the realism out of whatever game you're playing, and I actually enjoy a fair amount of realism.

Actually think the original MMO one was the holy trintey from EQ. Tank, Heals, & Crowd Control. Everyone else in the group was an extra that just let them kill a little faster.

The thing I hate the most in DnD 4ed is how uneven things are (well besides the fact they threw out 20+ years of lore). Look you have a goblin that could be a minion (really like the concept), a normal monster, equal to the player's, an elite, or a solo. How is this even possible? Hmmm and how all the class's are the same... nm could go on and on for that one, lol.

I'd say assuming standard adventures and not GM tailored ones this has been true from the get go though it mat not have been specifically tank/DPS/heals. Try to rock any of the old D&D modules without a fighter type, and a cleric type and you will most likely fail. Higher up and you need the mage, you kind of need the thief but that is mainly just for traps and the doors. Back in basic-2e the fighter was both DPS and tank, the mage was crowd based DPS and ridiculous utility, the cleric was utility+heals. 3e, the balance went even further out of whack at 9ish+ levels, but at least the rogue was useful. 4e, the balance is fairly solid outside bad ass mastery of the rules builds, system mastery no longer is about making avoiding sucking it is about being absurd, and the roles became fairly solid as well. You need DPS, you need tank, and you need heals. The control role is a bonus prize which was eventually fleshed out enough to be an equal, though not needed role.

I actually don't have a problem with the concept of roles, as long as they are not hard for a GM to build or modify an adventure so a party does not need a role. I can do it in either D&D or SR but it requires work. I am more and more getting into using hero for all my needs. The set up for a campaign is massive though which is a problem, but once the campaign world is created I find it to be the easiest system to run a game for. I am about to start playing in a SR game using the Hero system rules. Getting magic to feel right is the biggest challenge I think, but I like what the GM has done so far.

First off all:
It is impossible to talk about general balance.
A Skill/Trait which is extreamly usefull in one game might suck in an other one.
For example take Satyr legs ot the other skill, which makes you run faster. Both of them would be extreamly usefull in WOW, because you would be able to escape, if someone would try to kill you. But again on an Server where PVP is not allowed they would not be that usefull.
Same thing in Shadowrun: If you are sneaking and running, then this qualities pay off. If you are shooting your way through, they won't be that usefull.

And this argument is solid for close to everything.

Control thoughts is the way through the wall. If there are no consequences (because shooting peoble has also no consequences), then it is always superior to "talking". But if you let NPCs react to what happend it will change. Espacially if you have to interacted with the same NPC again.

The problem with mages in SR is, that after a certain point, they are extreamly powerfull.
A mage with a powerfocus 4, 4 Initiations and 8 Points of magic may solve close to every problem with magic (if he has acceptable drain attributes)
The point is: magic does not only get stronger the stronger the character becomes. Magic also gets more universal.

Its like Edge. It increasing it does not only encrease the effect if you use it, it also increases the times you may use it.

I hardly think 'the fluff says that mages should be OP' is adequate argument for ignoring balance for the rules. Fluff also says that trolls should be really awesome at hand to hand combat, but their low agility means they actually tend to not be that great at it (At the higher ends). Fluff also says that dwarves should make really good riggers, but the rules don't support that beyond a virtually inconsequential +1 wil. Fluff says that monowire is supposed to be very dangerous, but you have to critically glitch for them to do anything bad, and critical glitches are virtually non-existant for runners thanks to high DPs, so once again, no rules corrilation.

I like the fluff for SR alot, it's why I'm even interested in the game, because the rules themselves are nice and all, but not so stellar that they'd sell me on the system by themselves. But the rules often don't reflect fluff, so like I said earlier 'fluff says mages should be OP' is a very weak argument for not attempting to balance things.


A mage doesn't need all that. A mage with magic 6 can do 12 base damage attacks, can cast spells that no human can resist without counterspelling, and can cast spells that can effect inanimate objects like drone. Even at that point, there isn't alot that the mage can't solve with magic.

Need to blast through combat? Stunball, coming up.
Need to schmooze your way past someone? Control Thoughts coming up. Or less extreme, control emotions.
Need to scale a building? Levitation, coming up.
Need to get rid of a drone? Control (whatever metal drones are commonly made of, plasteel?), or powerbolt, or lightning bolt.
Need to be sneaky? Improved Invisibility coming up.
Need a distraction? Whatever the illusion spell is called, coming up.
Need backup? Spirit, coming up.

So yeah, you don't even need to talk about power focus 4 and all that other stuff before a mage can solve virtual any problem with magic.
That didn't start with WoW. It didn't even start with EQ. It started with D&D. The quintessential D&D group was: Fighter (Tank), Mage (DPS), Cleric (Heals), and Rogue (Utility). The only thing EQ or WoW did (Well, not even them, their communities really) was dub the role of fighter/mage/cleric tank/dps/heals. They basically took those classic archetypes and distilled them down to a single factor, but the fact remains that the essentials were there well before EQ, just looked at differently.

Heck, if you really want, you can go back to ancient warfare. You had tanks (those guys with huge shields) and DPS (archers, calvery, the guys with big weapons, etc) and even heals (Medics, supply lines, etc), and if you want Utility (Engineers). Those things are about as old as warfare itself.


Any system can be broken if you try hard enough. There is a massive difference between a core mechanic (Mages) being broken, and some obscure rule, that when combined with these three other obscure rules, produces a (admittedly much more) broken result. And the D&D erratas at least show that they are fixing these things, that they are errors, oversights, loopholes, etc. A mage with magic 6 is clearly not an oversight or loophole, and is clearly not being fixed, as from what I've heard, them being on the strong side has been a constant in SR, and that it has generally gotten worse over the editions.

P.S. Hope my stuff makes some sense at least, fairly late here, time for unconsciousness.

Technically it wasn't really the EQ Devs that created the "trinity".

It was the players.

Players noticed that monsters seemed to have code that dictated who the monster would target for attacks. Once you figure that out, it's merely a matter of testing to see what game actions trigger that code.

Players started to organize themselves into the roles of tank, healer, and DPS not because they were told to, but because it was an efficient way to take down powerful monsters.

The EQ Devs merely noted what the players were doing and ran with it. As did the WoW devs after them.




-k

They are at some point balanced by drain. Especially if you realise, that BC 1 is more of the norm then BC 0 in most regions where runs take place.
So your Magic 6 Mage gets: Spellcasting + 5 +Boni (0-4) for his spell.
This comes to (with spellcasting 6) 11-15 dices. Really not bad, but it ain't critical, because every spell is potential damage to the mage.
If he starts with 5/5 in his drain stats, he is able to shrug of 2 Points almost certainly (10-1=9) but every point above poses a risk.
So yes, he is able to stunbolt without (up to F7) any risk.
But shooting down drones with lightning will knock out the mage very soon.
And this is the point I am aiming at: At a certain point mages are able to shrug off drain easy. Centering, Implants, increase attribute...
And now they are able to shoot down drones, walk invisble (if they want to), control thoughts everytime they want. etc

Where do you get the idea that 1 is normal? One might be normal in an active prison where the inmates are abused or something, but a normal office building?

Well, I do not care to distinguish between + 1 and -1.
Every City is about -1 to -2, due to "lack of trees".

On the other hand, said prison would rank between 2 and 4.
So actually (if you use the mechanics given in streetmagic) every officebuilding would have a BC of +1. And since they do not cancel each other out you could easy argue for an effectiv BC from 2-3 to be standard.

Holy Fuckballs are people ever reminding me why I hate Dumbshock this week.

Do you also make it impossible for the Street Sam to enter any neighborhood that is Lone Star rated A+? Cyberware scanners are so cheap and SIN checking is so easy now that his fake SIN will be broken by the end of the block and he will be assassinated legally by a roto-drone before he crosses over to the next block.

The hypocrisy of this place is fucking amazing. Technology is a-ok in all regards and all situations but magic is something that needs to be put down hard. This reminds me of an old fight where people said mages weren't broken because the Sam had an assault rifle with underbarrel grenade launcher. Somehow they thought there should be background count in our white room but no restrictions on military weaponry.

Guess I need to update that ignore list some more.

That's why I said "Not even them, their communities really." aka their players.


As much as I think that mages need some downgrades on them, I need to point out that that is utter BS, and is not even remotely what the rules say.


Yeah, so a prison is rating two. An area 'without trees' is a rating 0. A murder scene is rating 1. An office building is rating 0.

I do find it interesting that an awakened bar would be a rating 1. I would think awakened would avoid places with BCs, but I suppose that it might be aspected towards the type of awakened that frequent it.

@Karoline

Well, it would be about -1 because the lack of nature. (Thats why I put "lack of trees" in this fellows "")
But -1 has the same effect as + 1. And these effects are also added together.

Your are just looking at half of the cake. The negative modifiers should also be considered.
So some workplace in a skyscraper might get his +1 due to emotions (some affair is enough for that).
Additional you might get a minus one. This makes it an effective rating of two.
Hospitals could also qualify for 2-3.

@Cheops

Nobody even talked about tech.

Where does it actually say that lack of nature causes background count?
in terms of background count, that's true, but in terms of Astral visibility it is not. That is the only place where I remember lack of nature as cause for a modifier (a positive one)

If you give a lot of Background count of ABS(1) or more, one of two things will happen a) your players won't want to play awakened characters any more b) they start munchkinizing their characters just to keep being effective.

I haven't said a damn thing about positive or negative. I've been talking purely about absolute value. Lack of nature has nothing in the book saying that it has a rating of 1 (in either direction since you can't seem to figure out that 'rating 1' means +/- 1). And no, you can't have both stacking. You can't have both a mana void and a mana surge. They are direct opposites. One is a lack of mana, the other is too much mana. You can't possibly have both at the same time and place. And no, 'some affair' isn't enough for a +1 BC for the entire building. A very passionate affair might effect a bathroom stall or janitor's closet or where ever exactly it happens, but it won't work on an entire building. I could see a hospital qualifying as a rating 1-2 BC due to all the emotions in such a place from the patients and their families, but I don't think it would go as high as 3.

@Dakka Dakka

I was getting it from the explanations about space and magic and how to support magic in space. (If having plants makes it possible to cast spell in space, then having no plants on earth is going to make it harder. )


Was not the point, that it is "stupid" to play a non-awakend character?
@Karoline

I did not understand it like that. First off all, I dislike the idea of using manastatic to compensate voids.
Second as far as I understand it, domains just have "charged" mana. It is harder to use.
Third of all, it does not make sense to me. Why should more mana in itself be a problem for the mage casting the spell and less mana too? In the same way?
If less mana would have meant weaker spells and more mana would have lead to side effects, ok. But this way?

Alright, this was bound to be missunderstood. I just wanted to give one example for BC. I did not want to purport, that it would be enough for the hole building.

I agree for the most part. Negative and Positive background counts do not stack, they negate one another. Think about the concept they represent: extra mana and less mana. How do you have both less and more of the same thing in the same place and time? You are using it like this: "Mary has 4 apples. John takes 2 apples (-2) and Lisa gives her 1 apple (+1). Mary has 1 apple." This is wrong. The absolute value is not applied to each BEFORE the subtraction, it occurs after the total background count is calculated.

Though, a mana Surge is not the opposite of a Mana Void. A Mana Warp is. A Mana Surge is an area where the ambient mana levels fluctuate so rapidly that at any given moment you may have positive mana or negative mana to draw on.


Additionally, there are no book examples for Mana Ebbs. A -1 may be reasonable for a city enviroment, but would likely be countered quite nicely by the presence of so many people who move about it so frequently. Then we get into domains created by pollution... it's kinda crazy when you factor in all likely BC changes.


*edited for grammar

I'd just say mages in SR are more easily broken. I don't find many of the core mechanics of mages broken, but virtually any min maxing at all will break them. I am not getting into the background count part of the debate but Irion core point that mages might not break depending on build is sound. Make a mage with 5 magic and 4 skill and you roll 9 dice. Given all the attributes etc you have to use it isn't far off from a normal mage build if you aren't ignoring everything but magic power ups. 9 dice will slaughter anything, in most cases, but so will a normal build street Sam with his guns. And at 9-10 dice in a drain stat you usually are taking drain from a variety of spells.

Min max the drain stat a bit, get a power focus, when you eventually initiate and then it falls apart. But hey I freely admit SR is not as balanced as 4e D&D, hell it may be less balanced than basic through 2e D&D.

That can be said of any archetype, as you yourself mention.