Back to topic, please. Keep in mind that the board language is English.

Party-Pooper.
And i stay with my first comment in this thread.
Fluff will do nothing to fix strong mages. Crunch will.
Racism will not fix mages either. Background Count will.
If you wanna go with racism, have it raise the BGC. Bam, fluff and crunch fix.

"You fail to cast the spell, because the universe HATES you, you stinking mage."

i'm fine with that.

Neither cool nor funny.

I thought it was funny.

I was thinking about writing Spielverderber instead.
Fact is, you can't fix mages without changing the rules.
Because everybody who could tell it's a mage would have to be a mage too.
An Anti-Magic-Terror-Group could procure HUGE quantities of FAB3 and aerosol-carpet-bomb seattle for example . .
This would get rid of most anything in the city . .

I've read/ understood it as an insult towards me.

If he wanted to insult you, I think he could've done better than 'Party Pooper'.

As others have said, the problems with magic are mechanical not thematic. Magic is A) Good, or at least no worse then anyone else at everything B) Hard to counter without magic. It has no ceiling on capabilities and is very very versatile. That and lets face it a lot of the spells wern't very well designed.

Eliminate sustaining foci or bring back some form of the grounding rules. (My personal version allows you to ground to targets on the same plane but not others. So for example if you throw a fireball on the astral at a dual natured target you get a fireball effect on the astral centered on the target but no matching effect in the meat world.
Enforce line of site, if a mage can't see it they can't affect it. I also require this for sustaining, if a mage can no longer see the target he's sustaining the spell on he can't sustain on it anymore.

True that, but I would had appreciated it much much more if he just posted no reply to it.

Wasn't Grounding called the possibility to cast spells from one plane to the other? Since SR3 at least this is no longer possible. Reintroducing it would actually make magic more powerful. By RAW you could not do what you did in your example. In SR4 all spells only affect the plane they are cast upon. PERIOD. Moreover indirect Combat Spells cannot be cast onthe Astral Plane at all.
A) How could you make anyone invisible with this houserule? B) How can a mage sustain any spell on himself?

Mages are as good as mundanes at everything? Tell me how do you use magic as effectively as mundane means to:
- Control the Matrix?
- Control Drones?
- Take out Drones?
- Socially interact with people?
- Do several of the above without massive Karma expenditure?

All PCs are powerful and all have their niche. I don't see any more problem witha mage than with other characters.

Those are all obvious, except the last one. There is *some* balance in the game.

Why the hell would anyone be angry or upset in the Utopia world of SR4? Just in the Barrens I guess but everywhere else people are living in a post-singularity virtual world with magic that allows environmentalism, transhumanism, and communal living that is unimaginable in our real world. The only reason SR is still gritty is because of past editions and because the devs wink and tell us it is.

I'll say it again: "First Rule Of Combat: Geek the Mage First!"

As soon as anyone does any spellslinging that's obvious, or a spirit shows up, every team that's trained in the Sixth World immediately starts looking for signs of the magician in question and puts EVERY bit of firepower on them as soon as possible.

It's worse than being a Machine Gunner today.

Except a starting mage can cast spells in any listed background count (except -12) by overcasting.

Speaking of the -12 background count: that is the lowest one listed in street magic, but I believe -12 is only the lowest possible for inhabited areas of space. Uninhabited areas should have an infinitely negative BC, and areas inhabited by a single person (like some guy who got in a pod and flung himself to the edge of space) should be far beyond -12.

Read the rules. Any starting mage will become temporarily mundane at a BC of unaspected +/-6 as BC reduces his MAG Attribute by its absolute value.

What makes you think that there can be a BC of less than -12? The lowest concentrations of Mana are called voids and range from -12 to -7. How much less than no mana can there be? Moreover what would purpose would a lesser value serve? Not even (unnamed) Great Dragons can cast in a void of -12! Being able to have an effective MAG 1 in a -12 Void would mean starting at MAG 6 initiating 7 times, and buying 7 increases to the MAG Attribute for a PC or NPC. That is a hell of a lot Karma (I'm to lazy to calculate exactly how much). Oh and don't forget the measly Force 2 Spell is as draining as a Force 14 spell.

Being forced to overcast is not nothing.

Slip of the tongue. I meant he could cast into a BC of anything better than -12.


If it's possible to use mana in a space, then how can there be none?

If YOU are in space, and you're a living thing, and living things generate mana, then the immediate area around you isn't a completely hard mana vacumn. A single individual only generates an infintessimally small quantity of mana, but if you're mr uber-mage with magic 13 then maybe you will be able to scrape it together and use it to cast that force 1 fireball that nevertheless kills you with its force 13 drain...

Edit: Incidentally I agree that regular background count is the natural 'crunch' counter to magic.

Ah Ok. Still at +/-11 an overcast Force 12 spell would become a "scary" Force 1 and still 6P+Modifiers drain.


All a high level initiate has is his own mana.

THen along come the scary NPCs with their GM-sanctioned metamagics that let them keep manaspheres in their pockets.

Huh what now?

How raped would the PCs be if they were stuck in an astral void, while that Bad Guy isn't affected by it?

You mean an Aspected Background Count, or Domain?

Yeah, my group really hated it when I they had to extract someone from a Catholic Orphanage that had one of those...

Jesus was literally watching them, and boy was he pissed off when they tried to snatch the kid!

No no. A negative background count which affects everyone BUT the Bad Guy. Tremble before my evil handwavium!

Yeah, the point is though that he could, and distance is no object. There would be no way whatsoever to hide completely from magic under the -12 minimum rules.
If you have a couple fortifications on the mage, and another mage constantly healing him with low force spells, then a 7 magic mage could nuke anyone anywhere (literally) by chipping away at his target's health.

Read up on how the magical healing works. it's not quite that easy i think.
Furthermore, read up on ritual magic. It's a bit harder than:"i wave my hand and on the moon something goes poof"

Yeah, I don't understand your scenario, longbowrocks. What does -12 have to do with anything? Why are they in space, to hide?

Not posible. Negative Background Count cannot be aspected. So it affects evceryone. Domains (which are aspected) only range from +1 to +6.
LOS still is an issue, and even optical aids have a limited resolution. Don't forget cover.
I'm not sure what fortifications you are talking about, but I know of no item that increases the MAG Attribute. Power Foci only give bonus dice. So apart from being reduced in BC as well a mage who is made mundane by BC remains that way no matter how powerful a focus he binds.
Healing spells are touch range spells and you may not change that in a newly designed spell.

Absolutely. But imagine if a GM handwaved some metamagic or enchantment that lets NPCs (and only, natch) 'carry' additional mana with them, so they use that mana when their encounter negative background count. Or a portable domain, maybe?

If the GM does not play by the rules it is even easier to achieve TPK. I doubt this in the interest of either the GM or the players.

You can do that, albeit at a penalty. It's called astral hazing. Makes your average situation much worse, but the extreme ones can be better.

The target is in space to get away from any sort of aggression towards him. We're arguing two things (kind of):
1. Whether the depths of space is a -infinity BC, or just -12.
2. Whether the depths of space with one inhabitant (the runaway) is less than -12 BC, or just -12.

I admit I haven't looked up magical healing yet. I'll check that out.

The mage could avoid rituals by using an optical scope if there are no planets in the way.
As for the complexity of rituals, it takes a few hours and a material/sympathetic/symbolic link, right?

You can only use sympathetic and symbolic links if you have the Sympathetic Linking metamagic.

Yeah, but the mage would need to initiate once to cast into BC -12 anyway.

It'd have to be ritual, because you literally could not get LOS. Even a simply sheet of material would block it. How is someone going to survive in 'the depths of space' anyway? I still don't understand the scenario. I guess it's a purely theoretical question.

Yeah, it's theoretical. Basically give up your life in order to be free of any retribution by intelligent life. After some time you'd go insane, starve, or die of old age if you brought enough materials, but no one should be able to hurt you from outside.

Except with missiles and lasers. You might as well posit that suicide is an effective protection against anyone else killing you.

Sounds like your average CEO's long time business plan.

1. Live forever.
2. ????
3. PROFIT.
4. Repeat Step 4.

Hehe. Still, in a thread about 'fixing mages', I just don't think hiding 'in the depths of space' is feasible, for anyone.

Step 1) get a line of view on someone who can do it
Step 2) cast Control Thoughts on him
Step 3) resist drain

Yup Aside from not being able to do much magic, what about the temperature, the vacuum and the radiation?

… EXCEPT an AI! They just need a little spaceship with solar panels (dunno if that constitutes 'depths of space'). The communications delay would *suck*, but they'd be 'alive'. Whatever that means for an AI, and not that they were vulnernable to magic in the first place.

Control thoughts does nothing to the matrix or drones. Control thoughts can manipulate people, which have to be present, which is an obvious drawback to doing the stuff directly. Moreover the mage can only issue an order in the Action phase after he cast the spell. This should give the informed victim ample time to call for backup. Lastly a failed attempt at mind rape is much entails much more dire consequences as failing to negotiate/con.

That's not quite true: it works on the *person* using the matrix or drones. Saying that magic doesn't control the drone is like saying the rigger doesn't control the drone, just his commlink.

I assumed it was a joke anyway, because you can easily make Awakened characters who are excellent hackers, riggers, etc.

Don't missiles and lasers have max range? Also they need to be able to target something from launch. I don't think you can just point one into space and say: "There's a guy somewhere out there. Find him and kill him."

Well, in Space, there is no real maximum range, as long as you have fuel . . get up to speed, stop using fuel, only burn short time for course correction.
Lasers are a bit harder, but theoretically much easier with the whole point and kill.
Also, if you do not care about collateral damage, simple sensor package and software. scan, find something that looks like it may be something that harbors life.
Aim, kill.