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Kronk2
My team happened upon a Mage protecting a mark. Mage had counter-spelling. I decided that the mage was had elected to counter-spell for the mark and himself starting at breakfast, (well before the team got there). My team was wondering if a Mage could just passively counter-spell all day long. I was thinking thats basically how it worked.
mmmkay
For the most part there are no penalties.

There are a few things to watch out for:

1) breaking line of sight. A mage cannot provide counterspelling for an unseen target.

2) Although I couldn't find it in the books. I presume an unconscious mage cannot provide counterspelling dice. I think everyone assumes this, but I have no direct quote to support my claim. So if you're mage took a midday nap he probably can't sustain his spell defense for the other guy.
Karoline
Yep, you and mmmkay have it. Mage basically wakes up and thinks 'I'm protecting myself and my team' and as long as she is conscious and in LOS of the person(s) she is protecting, she gives them her spellcasting skill in bonus dice to defend against hostile spells. Edit: even if caught by surprise.
mmmkay
Is consciousness implied?
Mäx
QUOTE (mmmkay @ Nov 27 2010, 01:29 AM) *
Is consciousness implied?

You can't exactly have LOS at anyone if you unconscious now can you?
mmmkay
QUOTE (Mäx @ Nov 26 2010, 03:31 PM) *
You can't exactly have LOS at anyone if you unconscious now can you?


It'd be tough.
jaellot
Though if you could, you would able to say things like "I can do that even in my sleep!". Good on a resume', I'm sure.
Raiki
Yup, I think it's pretty safe to say that eyelids block line of sight.





~R~
mmmkay
So if your mage has no eyelids or transparent eyelids he can always provide counterspelling to those within LOS.

Or if he programs his cybereyes to never close...

total hax =)
LurkerOutThere
Counterspelling takes a free action, as long as the mage has a free action they can use said free action to counterspell. So while they are unconscious no they couldn't counterspel but other then that so long as they don't talk and cast at the same time they are good for counterspelling.

mmmkay
QUOTE (LurkerOutThere @ Nov 26 2010, 11:51 PM) *
Counterspelling takes a free action, as long as the mage has a free action they can use said free action to counterspell. So while they are unconscious no they couldn't counterspel but other then that so long as they don't talk and cast at the same time they are good for counterspelling.


No. Counterspelling is not an action. It takes a free action to set up counterspelling.
LurkerOutThere
QUOTE (mmmkay @ Nov 27 2010, 02:02 AM) *
No. Counterspelling is not an action. It takes a free action to set up counterspelling.


Many people seem to believe this, I'm not sure why.

QUOTE ('SR4A p.185')
A magician can use Counterspelling to defend herself and others
against a spell being cast. To do this, the magician must spend a Free
Action and declare who she is protecting. If Counterspelling was not
declared in advance, it may not be used to defend others, unless the
magician has delayed her action (see Delayed Actions, p. 145). A protected
character must also stay within the magician’s line of sight in
order for Counterspelling to be used. Note that a magician can always
use Counterspelling to defend herself, unless surprised.


Now my point is if counterpseling was an always on free'r then free actiont here would be no need to put the bit about the declaration in there, a mage would simply always be countspelling anyone around them they wanted to, all the time.. I will admit this is a lot more ambiguous then I'd like but that's what the rules suggest to me.

Like most people I presume that once a mage declares counterspelling on targets their going to continue to do so while it is viable, but in combat situations where they want to cast spells, counterspell, and update the teams tacnet with magical threats that's where I start to make folks pick and choose.
Karoline
QUOTE (LurkerOutThere @ Nov 27 2010, 05:32 AM) *
Many people seem to believe this, I'm not sure why.

Because that's what it says in the book wink.gif

QUOTE
Now my point is if counterpseling was an always on free'r then free actiont here would be no need to put the bit about the declaration in there, a mage would simply always be countspelling anyone around them they wanted to, all the time.. I will admit this is a lot more ambiguous then I'd like but that's what the rules suggest to me.

This is because it requires a free action to set up, but no actions to maintain or use. Kind of like how you have to kick start a motorcycle, but you don't have to keep kick starting it while you are going down the road.

The main reason the free action is mentioned is because if a mage loses LOS to their teammates, they need to set it up again, so in combat if someone breaks LOS with the mage, the mage will have to decide if they want to spend a free action to bring them back under protection, or if they need the free action for some of those other things you've mentioned.
Aku
QUOTE (LurkerOutThere @ Nov 27 2010, 05:32 AM) *
Many people seem to believe this, I'm not sure why.

A magician can use Counterspelling to defend herself and others
against a spell being cast. To do this, the magician must spend a Free
Action and declare who she is protecting.
If Counterspelling was not
declared in advance, it may not be used to defend others, unless the
magician has delayed her action (see Delayed Actions, p. 145). A protected
character must also stay within the magician’s line of sight in
order for Counterspelling to be used. Note that a magician can always
use Counterspelling to defend herself, unless surprised.

Now my point is if counterpseling was an always on free'r then free actiont here would be no need to put the bit about the declaration in there, a mage would simply always be countspelling anyone around them they wanted to, all the time.. I will admit this is a lot more ambiguous then I'd like but that's what the rules suggest to me.

Like most people I presume that once a mage declares counterspelling on targets their going to continue to do so while it is viable, but in combat situations where they want to cast spells, counterspell, and update the teams tacnet with magical threats that's where I start to make folks pick and choose.



Emphasis mine, to answer you question, as to why
LurkerOutThere
As there is no limit on who the mage is protecting though there is no point to making the declaration a free action. A mage standing in the midst of a football station just declares "I'm protecting everyone I can see". If they had wanted the rules to state that a mage is always protecting those they want to without any sort of action I think they would have wrote it differently.
Draco18s
QUOTE (LurkerOutThere @ Nov 27 2010, 04:47 PM) *
As there is no limit on who the mage is protecting though there is no point to making the declaration a free action. A mage standing in the midst of a football station just declares "I'm protecting everyone I can see". If they had wanted the rules to state that a mage is always protecting those they want to without any sort of action I think they would have wrote it differently.


Welcome to trying to interpret the rules in a manner not consistent with what was written. indifferent.gif

It clearly states its a free action to set up, and a null action to maintain. Anything other than that is clearly a house rule.
mmmkay
Average capacity of a football stadium today 70,000

Maximum number of Free Actions Per IP= 3
Maximum number of Initiative Passes = 4
Time per Combat Turn = 3 seconds

Time to give counterspelling to a football stadium = 70,000*3/(3*4) seconds = almost 4 hours and 52 minutes

I'm sure a mage will do this all the time.

Anyways as Karoline said the point of counterspelling taking a free action is so that if in the midst of combat your teammate ducks out of sight you have to decide whether to reassign spell protection or not.
Mäx
QUOTE (mmmkay @ Nov 28 2010, 12:39 AM) *
Average capacity of a football stadium today 70,000

Maximum number of Free Actions Per IP= 3
Maximum number of Initiative Passes = 4
Time per Combat Turn = 3 seconds

Time to give counterspelling to a football stadium = 70,000*3/(3*4) seconds = almost 4 hours and 52 minutes

You have a lot of unneccary step in that
step 1: get in to a highly elevated position so you can see everyone
step 2: spend a free action to declare counterspell for everyone
Time taken less then 1s to 3s plus how ever long it took for you to get up there.
mmmkay
"To do this, the magician must spend a Free
Action and declare who she is protecting."

I assumed who was singular in this case, but it can be read as plural. You got me.
Karoline
That is a good point. It can be read as singular or plural. I've always read it as plural. Anyone have a foreign language one that would specify between plural and singular?
Aku
I would also rule that it is plural, as in context, it is always referring to protecting OTHERS, not ANOTHER (singular)
Nifft
QUOTE (Aku @ Nov 27 2010, 09:08 PM) *
I would also rule that it is plural, as in context, it is always referring to protecting OTHERS, not ANOTHER (singular)

No, because time. The specifier can range over a group of others serially (many people, one at a time).

"Do unto others as you'd be done by" doesn't require that you're doing unto all of them at once. It applies to a single other person and to any other subset of humanity equally.

Cheers, -- N
LurkerOutThere
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Nov 27 2010, 04:33 PM) *
Welcome to trying to interpret the rules in a manner not consistent with what was written. indifferent.gif

It clearly states its a free action to set up, and a null action to maintain. Anything other than that is clearly a house rule.


This part here is where your on shaky ground, there is no statement for how long counterspelling is maintained or what it takes to maintain and no good equivalent for the act of maintaining spell defense. Since there is no duration specified and the system includes a specific prohibition on not being able to retroactively cover people I have to conclude that it lasts from action to action for the character.
Dhuul
@ Karoline: short answer: no, it does not specify.

I looked up my german books again. SR4A in german could mean both, too. The wording is near identical (which is rare for translations from english to german/german to english). I also looked up SR3 but there it is not clear either.

This got me thinking though. We will need to talk about this at our table and maybe houserule it in a way everybody likes.
Ascalaphus
I could swear there was something about protecting up to Magic rating people with Counterspelling, but maybe I imagined that. It seems a reasonable limit to me though, and it creates some interesting situations when your team is too big to protect all of them at the same time.

I'm fairly liberal when it comes to LOS; if the mage's team is standing around him, then I'll even consider the one standing behind him in LOS, as long as there aren't any obstacles in between them. YMMV.

As for setting up... I'm not sure either way. Having to spend a free action every IP seems a bit burdensome, because then a mage can't Cast+Protect+Talk. It also encourages shenanigans, like dropping counterspelling in IP 3-4 when all the enemy mages have finished their turns, and then picking up again in the first IP of the next round.

I think I prefer turning it on until a protected character leaves the area the mage can protect, or until he needs the capacity to protect someone else (see my thoughts in capacity above).
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Ascalaphus @ Nov 28 2010, 06:58 PM) *
I could swear there was something about protecting up to Magic rating people with Counterspelling, but maybe I imagined that. It seems a reasonable limit to me though, and it creates some interesting situations when your team is too big to protect all of them at the same time.


Well, previous editions had that as a limiter, but it is not a limiter in SR4A... wobble.gif
DMiller
Reading the section on Spell Defense in my SR4 (v1.3+errata) makes it apparent that Counterspelling is supposed to protect multiple targets at the same time. The paragraph quoted earlier in the post is only one of several in the section. Reading the complete section makes the ability to protect more than one person pretty clear (at least as clear as mud). However the Free Action argument is not clear at all. The statement in the paragraph can be easily interpreted either as a single free action to set up, then maintenance is a non-action, OR that it requires a free action each IP to use. Though I'm a very liberal GM, I think that the free action every IP is the more correct way to interpret this statement. Mages are way too powerful in the overall scheme of the game and this very minor hindrance does add a little balance back into a very one-sided combat scenario when mages are involved.

-D
Draco18s
QUOTE (DMiller @ Nov 29 2010, 12:42 AM) *
Mages are way too powerful in the overall scheme of the game and this very minor hindrance does add a little balance back into a very one-sided combat scenario when mages are involved.


You mean by having mages nuke non-mages willy nilly because the opposing mage spent his free action doing something else?
LurkerOutThere
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Nov 29 2010, 12:07 AM) *
You mean by having mages nuke non-mages willy nilly because the opposing mage spent his free action doing something else?


The counter argument being now mages can't just speak and center at will if they want to keep spell defense up.
Ascalaphus
But generally, the existence of countermagic makes the mages (friendly and foe) less totally dominating in the combat. So if you wanted to nerf mages, this is the wrong way to do it.
Brainpiercing7.62mm
I think treating counter-spelling in the most liberal way is THE answer to the "mage problem".

We all know that mages are a bit too powerful. But if everyone and their mother got counterspelling from someone, then they would lose at least some offensive power, while maintaining their normal versatility.

As a house-rule, it might be smart to introduce stuff like counter-spelling fetishes, which are very cheap, and which allow you to break LOS for counter-spelling. You declare the protection on the person holding the fetish, and can maintain it while the person is in posession of it. That way, suddenly everyone on the opposing team has some counter-spelling dice, because one mage can protect a ton of people. No more just the average three Willpower dice to defend against those multi-cast stunbolts.

Of course, a specialised mage can potentially provide quite a lot of dice to his team, which also means the mundane runners are less vulnerable to enemy mages. But that's all good. Let the mages go back to providing a crapton of utility, and not take away the combat focus from the sammies. Arguably you now have to make enemy mages a lot stronger, to give them a chance of penetrating the counterspelling, but that's also not a problem, IMHO. Make them rarer, but more powerful.
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