Hi fellas,

last weekend we had a theoretically very decent run that didn´t worked out very well. I will first give you some background informations and then i will ask you for your help.

I owed the Rusted Stilettos a favour and they asked me to go into the deeper parts of glow city to get a guy that was hiding in the "central office" of a even more radiated gang than the stilettos are. I packed my rad-protective underwear, our street-sam (20 dices in rapid-fire weapons) and our rigger with some real bad drones (this strange spider-walker drone with an HMG and i think a nissan doberman with a vigorous autocannon) and thought "no problem"....but it was a problem. The gang leader was a low-power toxic mage that started to send us one level 3 radiation-spirit after another. The background count was about 3-4 and therefore not much was left from my magic 6. Due to the aspected background count, the GM counted it as if it was a level 6-spirit and therefore we stood no chance against them. I disrupted 2 of them but it caused 6P drain, the autocannon couldn´t follow us due to the bad streets and the HMG did nothing. So we had to retreat from the scene without completing the contract.

I think i don´t have to mention how much i hate to retreat...

So some points came into mind that could change situations like that. I am already initiate rating 2 (masking and quickening) and i could try to get the metamagics cleansing and then filtering but we don´t agree the way the first one is used. If i remember correctly, it talks about "cleaning the area for xxx minutes/hours, but glow cits seems a bit big for an "area". So how much is cleaned really? This would be question no. 1.

Then i told the GM that you don´t loose magic if you e.g. put cyber in, as long as your theoretical maximum magic (essence plus initiation-grade) is higher than your real magic (we had this topic regaring Vampirism etc.), but i couldn´t show him the reference in the books. So could somebody please give me the corresponding parts? This was question no. 2

If question 2 is cleared, i was also thinking about putting cyber or bioware in. I thing 1 point should be enough, but i don´t know what i should put in. Do you have some really good things in mind? I play a charisma based tradition and an elf. What do you think about skillwires? This would be question set 3.

Question no. 4 is, if the GM did the background count correct. Is the BC added to the force of the spirit or is it simply a dice pool modifier for the spirit/mage applied after calculating attribute + skill? We also did it this way, that the BC lowers my magic and every spell i tried was calculated as if it was BC-rating higher than it really was. So if i spoke a force 7 spell, a force 4 spell popped out but with the drain as if it had been force 10. Correct?

Thank you very much in advance...

You put in cyber or bio, you lose magic. End of Story.
And yes, your GM did the BGC right, as fat as i can tell.
Remember: BGC IS BAD, if it is NOT YOUR BGC.
This is the main reason why aspected mana-static was mostly ruled out of existence.
Get normal mana-static, cast, level the playing field by making it a zone full of unaspected BGC so EVERYBODY has Problems.

Regarding the magic-loss i am not sure if i missed the point in the discussion. So lets wait for a clarification.

But your proposal brings up another question. Image you step in a BC of 3, and you have magic 6. Now you want to use the mana-static spell. To make it working you have to cast it at a force so high, that your effect is higher than the BC around you. So you cast a level 6 spell (your max. force at this moment), that is reduced to 3 (which would be useless) with a 3-force-points higher drain that is even physical (and i remember that the drain was even in optimal conditions nasty)....makes no sense to me. Only high-power initates could make this spell work. Or did i miss something again?

#1, I would say that all of Glow City is a well established and powerful background count, but if not, which area is cleansed is entirely up to your GM. It should certainly be big enough to encompass the theater of combat.

#2

Your initiate level or theoretical maximum magic is irrelevant. You loose Essence, you loose Magic.

#3 I'm not a big fan of shamans with cyberware, but your search-foo should yeild about a thousand topics about good cyberware for mages. Trauma Dampeners and Daredrenaline are popular.

#4

Doesn't increase the spirit's Force, just gives it extra die limited by the spirit's Force.


My suggestion is, next time, ignore the spirits and geek the mage. Aside from that, find out what it is that is causing this background count and remove it before you tackle this cat again. If I were your GM, that is probably what I would be leaning my players towards.

Essence loss causes the loss of both actual AND maximum Magic. That's well-established in the rules.

If you have an enemy like that who refuses to leave the building, you should try a different style of attack; mortar fire perhaps, or straight-up Demolitions to level the building. Or poison gas (but that might not work on a Toxic shaman.)

Refusing to budge isn't a flawless strategy; it gives besiegers the opportunity to devise a way to turn your fortress into a casket..

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Note that since BGC doesn't increase the Force of the spirit, it also doesn't raise it's ItNW, and the ItNW of a F3 spirit shouldn't be a serious obstacle, since most weapons do 6+ damage anyway.

The situation you propose is spelled out pretty clearly in the base book. The example they use is a girl with a Magic of 4 and a maximum or potential of 6 implanting cyberware and having her magic reduced to 3 and her maximum reduced to 5. This is the exact scenario you are proposing. You loose Essence, you loose Magic.

And fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man.

I always call for air-strikes, but do they ever happen? No.^^ Besides we had to get our target there out alive, so flatten the building or using poison gas was no option.^^ If the spirits haven´t been played wrong (it was our mistake for not reading the rules correctly) we could have easily made it. But like Arnie said..."i´ll be back".

The more people i hear that say, the more i think i have dreamed of this discussion. But it really was about becoming infected and losing magic through the loss of essence. I tried my search-fu, but on the first 20 pages i couldn´t find the topic and for a more detailed search i am lacking the time at the moment. The point was, that if you are e.g. an initiate of rating 2 with magic 6, your theoretical max. magic is 8. If you now lose essence (no matter which source) you only lose magic if you actual magic is higher than your maximum magic. In this case, you could spend 2 points of essence before you lose magic because your max. magic is still equal or lower than your max. magic (4 essence plus 2 initiation-grades = 6). But if you are e.g. a mage with essence 6 and magic 7, initiation grade 1, and then you lose a point of essence, you actual magic (7) is higher than your maximum (which would be essence 5 plus 1 grade of initiation) and you lose one point of magic.

When an Infected loses Essence, it only affects their Magic if the essence loss Drops the Maximum Magic below the Current Magic of the Infected. If I am remembering Correctly that is. It is convoluted for the Infected (as opposed to normal characters), BECAUSE you must track all of these things simultaneously, and you can dynamically gain and lose Essence, which a normal character cannot. I hate Infected.

That is in direct opposition to what the base book says. The girl in the example on p.117 of SR4 has a theoretical magic of 6 and and actual Magic of 4 and she still loses Magic(goes to 3) when she gets cyberware. I can't find anything in any book about Initiation that contridicts this.
What is your source for this line of reasoning?

It deals specifically with Infected and their ability to dynamically gain and lose Essence. I believe that it is in the Book that details the Infected. Runners Companion. Do not remember what pages, though. Of course, it could also be in the book that dewscribes the Essence Drain ability as well.

So, is Machi's character Infected? If that's the case special rules apply.

EDIT- Runner's Companion p.77 for those interested.

That is indeed the Question... Thanks for the page Reference, I was unsure, and have no access to books currently.

Nah, not jet infected. Working on it. I was just thinking that this kind of ruling would also work for common characters.

Nope... It is an aspect of the Infected Only.

Then let me add another voice to the chorus. What you are looking for is wishful thinking and nothing else.

Bye
Thanee

Obviously.^^

Just thought it'd be useful to have this here.

Aaaaaah, that was the source of all evil. Thank you. I should have all the books on hand, even if i am at work.^^

I'll admit I've got a copy of the PDFs at work now too, for that very reason (e.g. looking up some rule to post on Dumpshock). Not today, however, as I've been zombified and am at home.

If you need to get the mage alive, I'd use some shpaed charges or such direct explosives to punch some holmes then dump knockout gas into the thing - if you're packing for rads, there's a very good chance your gear is selaed and it won't be that much of problem if the place is filled with gas.

Flashbang grenades are a nice addition to the the mix in siuch situations.

If you're dealing with a bunch of toxic-loving gangers, I'd be surprised if they gear was good, so you may do well to stack the penalties for them (smoke grenades, loud noises... anything that gives them penalties you can avoid).

If all you have to deal with is the mage and his spirits while his buddies are trashing in the mess with a crapload of penalties, things whould be easier for you.

Not a huge fan of Skill Wires on elf charisma traditions given that such builds rarely have the raw attribute totals laying around to really take advantage of Activesofts. I would tend to favor the Pain Editor, Tailored Pheromones or Muscle Toners depending on whatever your secondary skillset is. If you were a human logic tradition I'd just say roll out with cybereyes, pain editor and cerebral booster combo, but for an elf with natural low light vision and Charisma as a drain attribute such things are less pressing.

If you (and your rigger) have some nuyen, downtime and a workshop, the rigger could take a large van and mod it to walker mode (to handle the difficult terrain) while you summon a top force spirit (twice your Magic) and get it to anchor a top force ward (twice its Magic) on the van. If you only have one spirit working on this ward it will take 1 hour per force point, so you might have to make do with F14 or so (depending on season determining time between dawn and dusk). When you enter the mission zone, the hostile spirits will be hindered by your mobile ward. Your casting will still be hindered by the background count, but at least you can defend better against the spirits.

Good idea, at least protecting the van is something i missed to do in the past. I think we have to increase our professionality a bit... Thank you for all the comments, it really helped a lot to clarify mistakes we did.

So essentially, you're building a heavily shielded mech to steamroll the opposition? Reminds me of this.

Lob some incendiary mortars I to the building. When the place is on fire, they will come out. Then you switch to frag mortars and really ruin their day. Learn the appropriate Slay [toxic badness] spell and snipe any spirits that come out with them. Once all the lackeys are sufficiently salsa'd then you deal with the Mage.