-Direct Combat Spells are no longer fully resisted when resist successes equal or exceed casting successes. Instead, all resistance successes reduce all damage from a Direct Combat spells by 2. For example, a Force 6 Stunbolt with 3 successes would normally deal 9 stun damage. If the target gets 3 successes, it deals 0, if the target gets 2 successes, it deals 7. This change would make that same spell resisted with 3 successes, it still deals 3 stun damage, and at 2 successes deal 5 stun damage. The goal of this is to make direct spells less binary, while making counterspelling more effective against them than indirect spells.

-Counterspelling against Indirect Combat Spells now applies to the damage resistance test, rather than to the dodge test. This makes Indirect Combat spells more akin to gunshots, reducing the effectiveness of counterspelling against them. The goal of this is to make direct combat spells a bit better, currently they're too easy to dodge given that most characters in combat are going to have a much higher reaction than Will or Body, because of how much easier it is to boost reaction. The idea is to make a indirect combat spell less susceptible to counterspelling, since they have to deal with armor as well.


-A new manatech armor enhancement is introduced, giving effective counterspelling on the person wearing it equal to the rating. Each rating costs 2 armor upgrade slots. Cost is 2000xrating and the Availability is 4R per rating. This counts as counterspelling rather than magic resist so that if you have an actual instance of counterspelling, it uses the assisting rules (ie roll the counterspelling dice, add successes to the counterspelling pool), rather than stacking directly. This makes the enhancement far weaker if you actually have counterspelling available, though still helpful, but allows mundanes to resist without a mage backup. Particularly useful for NPC security forces.

My first question is why? Guns are already more effective at killing people than spells, and there are a ton of effective ways to counter act magic.

An armor that provides counterspelling makes no sense in world, and there allready is a device to screw with mages thats cheap and easy to get, they are called smoke grenades. If you want to get really fancy use some FAB.

Your "solution" with direct combat spells pretty much ruins them by dramatically reducing their damage output, and makes it so if someone has counterspelling you shouldn't bother. Once again, guns do more damage than direct combat spells, and they don't every hurt you to use them(barring critical glitches natch), why do direct combat spells need a nerf?

As for your third option, honestly I'd just make it so indirect spells are not subject to counterspelling(which know is a house rule). Indirect damage spells are really underpowered as is, and it doesn't make sense that counterspelling should work. In SR counterspelling creates a kind of magical jamming field around you/your friends, and the damage from indirect spells is not magic, just the effect that creates it is, so it shouldn't be affected by a jamming field.

Guns are resisted by armor, where spells typically ignore either most or all of it. As long as you can deal with the drain (which most casters should be able to do), spells are as effective or moreso than any gun, depending on the target.



So some sort of magically resistant material being developed by a megacorp from researching the properties of people with magic resistance, and how counterspelling works is completely unfeasible? Honestly I'm more surprised that some corp hasn't done it already. The fact that only a mage can help defend against a mage is one of the biggest problems with magic right now.




Because direct combat spells are extremely binary right now. Either they instantly kill you, or do nothing. Most things have a gradient of damage that can be applied, but due to how direct spells work, that doesn't really come into play. This is bad.



That would work as well, but I figured counterspelling not applying at all would be an even bigger difference, and I figure that half armor (what most indirect spells go against) + counterspelling is roughly equivalent to the full armor that normally gets applied.

"The fact that only a mage can help defend against a mage is one of the biggest problems with magic right now." Or one of the main features of magic. I'm not saying either view is right, but you have to admit that both are mere opinions.

As for the balance/numbers, I'd take a look at the several previous threads about this (usually a variation on 'fixing direct combat spells').

Magic Resistance works just fine, and you cannot have that as a Mage. As well, I heard that there is clothing(?) that may now possess the Magic Resistance Quality listed in Attitude. I do not know if this is fact, as I do not have the book yet, but I have heard here on the forums that they exist, so, there you go, Clothing/Armor with MR to assist the Mundane.



I do not see this as binary. IF you are casting at maximum capacity, and IF you have a HIGH FORCE MAGE, then yes, it will generally work out that way. But that is a problem with the Skill/Power Level of the Mage rather than the system itself.



The only drawback to Indirect Spells are their Drain Codes. Disallowing Counterspelling can make certain amount of sense, dependant upon where the effect takes place. But if I were changing things, I would go with another often discussed option, which would be to just switch the modifiers to the Drain for the Direct vs. Indirect Spells. Make the Direct Spells increase their Drain by 2 instead of the Indirect Spells.

Well yes, but I am operating from the former point of view, as opposed to the latter. The feature of being unbeatable except against others who are as awesome as you are is not something I consider to be a good feature. Magic has plenty all ready as far as unique effects goes, giving people without a mage backing them up a chance of resisting a spell now and again is something I feel is sorely needed.



The clothing requires karma to bind just like a focus. It happens to cost exactly as much karma to bind as it would cost to just pick up the quality, and costs 10,000 nuyen per bp the quality is worth. So for Magic Resist 4 you spend 40 karma and 200,000 nuyen, which is both ridiculous AND useless since you could get the exact same thing for just the 40 karma, and not have it rely on wearing specific clothing.

You can't even say that this doesn't require GM adjucation like picking up new qualities does, because the section on the clothing specifies that they may be introduced only at GM discretion.





Thing is, low force mages simply don't make an appearance for the most part. Why? As players they are suboptimal, and as a NPC, they won't present much in the way of a challenge. So you have to look at it at least from a mid quality mage, which is more than enough to make it binary.





They also have the drawback of being dodged by reaction rather than body/will (reaction is typically going to be the higher stat given it is much easier to boost), which is why I shifted the counterspelling towards mitigation rather than the dodge to help eliminate that drawback at least. But yes, indirect spells being much higher on drain is also a problem.

Just nit-picking here a little bit, but don't most things that do damage, do "binary" damage? Either you dodge the bullet, or take the full damage + net hits. Either you block/dodge the melee attack, or you take full damage etc etc...

Or are you just talking about how direct spells ignore armor? If so, I agree that changing the drain codes could help you in this area.

When you fail to dodge a bullet, you get to mitigate it with body + armor.
When you fail to dodge a indirect combat spell, you get to mitigate it with body + half armor.
When you fail to resist a stunbolt, you don't get to mitigate it with anything, you take the full damage.



One of these is not like the others. That is the binary effect I am talking about, if you fail to shrug it off completely, there is nothing to mitigate it. My suggested change is to make it so that you can't shrug it off 100% as easily, but it can be mitigated down from the maximum value to a lower value more easily. The idea is that a direct combat spell should be most effective against someone without magical protection, while indirect spells should be more valuable against someone with it.

My Magic 2 Mage would like to have a word with you about that.

If you want people to resist a direct combat spell twice, just let them. Add a second roll as a "mitigation" roll. Remember to add bonuses to magical resistance on each roll. Problem solved?

Yes, you could do it that way, but what do you apply to the mitigation roll? Willpower/Body + Counterspelling again? Doesn't that make it effectively the same as Willpower + Counterspelling (successes doubled) except retaining the possibility off complete resistance from the initial roll?



"For the most part" there are of course exceptions, but they're relatively rare, and the vast majority of casters made are going to have at least 4-5 magic. The only one I've personally seen in play with less had 2 for casting, but was a mystic adept with 5 base magic.

Well, a lot of "burned out mage" archetypes have low Magic.

They tend to have replaced the Magic with moderate Cyberware, though.





-k

I feel like that's mostly for NPCs, or deliberately handicapped PCs.

Why do they have to be deliberately handicapped? Why can they not just be Average Mages who are not yet at the peak of their powers? World Class SHOULD BE RARE.

Fluff to justify game mechanics rarely works. Fact is getting high magic at character creations is as affordable and more efficient than most other options, so most mage types will have it, unless you start putting in strict limitations or other houserules to discourage it.

How about Concept? That has been all the RULES I have needed to generate intersting and playable characters. No Houserules or other Limitations needed.

The Mechanics are a metagame issue. Fluff is the only in-game rationale that the character knows. How do you continue to justify World Class Runners for each and every character that you create? To me, that is just boring.

It truly amazes me how everyone can just toss aside the world and its fluff when making a character. And then wonder why they are having so many problems controlling their game environment.

Oh Well...

If they were normal, they wouldn't be runners. Besides, 'average mages' *is* deliberately handicapped. So I'm right. No one said you can't play deliberately handicapped players, for the 'concept'. You're the one who described your 'standard group' as 3 mages, 2 assassins, and a submerged technomancer, so don't tell me about fluff and the world.

Shadowrunners as a whole are supposed to be the elite specialists. Do you also make street sammies with no weapons skill above 3, and no attribute higher than 4, with no cyberware except used stuff because it's more common?

What's rare and what's not doesn't really come into the picture when you're talking about player characters because on the whole they tend towards being on the rare end of the spectrum rather than the common end. Sure we get some fun optimization challenges like the accountant from hell posted a while back, but those are the minority.

You speak as though you feel the game as a whole is intended to be street level average joes, with high end magics being rare. If that's the case, magic should cost far more. Something like the karma system and a starting karma of 500-600 would get that sort of playstyle, but the default assumed for the game is 400 BP, and at that level every character has a specialization he is good at, and most have several other things they dabble in as well. The fact is the game system does not support your view of how shadowrun characters should be. It supports the idea of shadowrunners as highly skilled individuals, so yes, you will see high magic mages and skill 5-6 marksmen far more frequently in shadowrunners than you will in the general populace.



edit: Ninja'd

Really? Again?

Learn to use the fucking search function.



I guess I will go over this yet again...

Direct Combat spells are overpowered. This is by a largely minuscule amount that does not actually affect gameplay.
They do not need to be 'fixed'.
Most of the perceived power disparity comes from them using a different system of resolution than most other tests in the game (lack of defense and resistance).
If you do want to 'fix' Direct Combat, absolutely do not do so by making it even more complex & different from the rest of the game. Instead, streamline it with existing rules.


My fix (please note this works in conjunction with a number of other changes I have made)

Direct Combat spells allow a 'defense' test, using Intuition + Counterspelling vs Magic + Spellcasting. Handle as normal opposed tests.
If the character is "hit", they receive a resistance test using Body (if Physical) or Willpower (if Mana) + Astral Armor. Each hit reduces damage received by 1.



Edit:
@ Tymeaus
As has been said, 'rare' in terms of world statistics <> 'rare' in terms of niche demographics (ie shadowrunners)
'Rare' in terms of worldbuilding & fluf <> 'rare' in terms of player characters.

As an example, doctors are rare in terms of world population. They are not rare among hospitals or medical schools.
Goths are rare in terms of world population. They are not rare among goth clubs.


Shadowrun is not a game designed around playing the 'average Joe'. It is a game designed around playing highly skilled criminal professionals & specialists. If that's not the game you are playing, you should probably try to find a new system.

So your solution is to make it mitigated by astral armor which almost nobody actually has. Yes, this is clearly a more elegant solution than what is proposed here.

And yes, since people have had trouble detecting obvious sarcasm on this forum before, the above statement was an example of it.

Yet another incompetent incapable of reading, thinking, & analyzing...

The change I made results in weaker Direct Combat spells for several reasons.
First: By changing the defense from one of two attributes to a single attribute, it is universally made easier to resist direct spells as a whole, as you no longer need to split your focus.
Second: It allows a fucking resistance test to reduce damage. This flat out reduces the expected damage received, even if with only 2 dice.


Most importantly, it's not supposed to reduce spell power levels. It was specifically designed to remove an unnecessary subset of rules that frequently generated a false perceived power disparity in the rules. Guns are far more effective at damaging opposition than combat spells, before or after my change.

Hey look, it's a guy who feels like he needs to sling insults to maintain his superiority complex. Come down off that high horse and have a talk with the rest of us bud.


And yes, you made the initial resistance less troublesome, since you only have one stat, but now as a whole you have 3 stats to worry about, and the best part is, none of the three is one that is easily augmentable (like reaction is), thus making it still better than indirect spells. And on top of that, you still have next to no mitigation, since you are still relying on counterspelling (not guaranteed, especially in the case of players attacking NPCs) and astral armor (exceedingly rare). How do you not see this as a problem? If one of your accompanying houserules is that astral armor is as common as mundane armor, then I can see the value, but nothing you've said indicates this to be the case.

Your change, as you yourself note, effectively changes nothing. You have allowed a willpower roll to reduce damage if you fail to negate the spell. That's it, cause who the fuck has astral armor? It simply adds an extra roll in to make direct spells work more similarly to other mechanics. If you want that, as someone else in this thread suggested, why not just have the will/body+counterspelling test made twice, once to negate, and once to mitigate. Or with your change, Intuition+counterspelling twice (though that kills the difference between physical and mana spells). At least that way you would be mitigating some amount of damage more frequently. This still relies on the target having some counterspelling, but at least it doesn't rely on an exceedingly rare ability that appears only on some critters and as a spell most casters probably don't even have.



With the way it is now, direct spells will either knock you flat out/kill you, or do absolutely nothing, with no middle ground. With your change, the same exact thing happens. With my change, there's a much larger gradient between nothing done, and killing, which was the entire point.

Listen Muspellsheimr, maybe you're having a bad day at the office or something, but you really gotta cut back on the caffeine. Seriously

Back on topic (sorta?)

It seems that maybe alot of the problems with "overpowered" spells comes from having direct and indirect spells. If you "fix" one, then the other is possibly now imbalanced. Changing drain codes, resistance rolls, those changes help one but hurt the other.

Do "we" like having two types of combat spells? I know they've been around since 1st ed, but maybe this disconnect in spell-types should go away altogether. I'd be ok with all combat spells following the indirect rules, personally.

Depends on the build.

My first Missions character is a burned out mage. He's decidedly not handicapped at all.

What can I say? I gotta be me.




-k

This is a workable option as well. You'd have to get rid of a few redundant spells, but not many. Most of the indirect spells are elemental affiliated, while direct spells typically are not. If they become treated as indirect force spells, and you just get rid of the overlapping spells this could work. The ones that come to mind off the top of my head are stunbolt line (replaced by Clout line), and Manabolt/ball (which as an indirect spell is indistinguishable from Powerbolt/ball). But in this case all combat spells are dodged with reaction + counterspelling, and resisted by body+1/2 armor. I'd still recommend moving counterspelling to the mitigation rather than the dodge, but either way is workable, and still more balanced than what we have currently. The translated direct spells are cheaper on drain still, but that's okay since that cheaper drain comes at the expense of not having an elemental affiliation, while still having the drawbacks of indirect spells.

I still have a soft spot for the burned out mage, if only for nostalgia for the archetype. I also still like the Rocker as well


Yeah, that's how I was seeing it too. I agree that counterspelling would make more sense in the mitigation rather than the dodge. And the dodge skill could still be included if used as full defense, also allowing a spec in dodging spells or something. Makes as much sense to me as dodging a bullet

Manabolt (and others?) could still sorta work like "direct" spells do, but only against astral forms like spirits or dual-natured critters or something..

"Though this quality is inexpensive, gamemasters should be careful not to allow it to be abused. It should only be taken for characters that are intended to be played as magicians."

SR4A, pg 91

Using magic 2 magicians to measure player power is kinda a silly point, because a GM is well allowed by the rules to disallow such a character due to the little tidbit above.

In any case, I don't see why people think direct combat spells are so powerful. I understand they don't have a separate defense and resistance test(which makes them strong), but they are also cast with a complex action. Firearms take only a simple action to use, so even though there are more defenses, they literally attack twice as often. A heavy pistol does just under a force 5-6 manabolt in damage, but will win out agienst all but the heaviest armored foes in damage by virtue of it's two attacks, and an assault rifle can outdamage a force 10-12 manabolt easy, and you never have to check for drain with guns. If you just want to kill people quickly, playing a magician is the wrong route. Spells do less damage than guns, and are more risky.

But the pistol needs atleast those 2 attacks, where as a force 9 stunbolt takes out the same target in one hit and ofcource you can, if you want, cast 2 force 7 stunbolts simultaneously if you absolutely want to make 2 attacks.

My Current Street Sam has a Skill of 3 in Firearms, so Yes, Yes I do. Stats are midrange, but far from maxed. Used Cyberware is conditional dependant upon the character concept. Might have one Hardmaxed Attribute due to 'Ware (Reaction).



But why is that the case? Skills of 3 are Professional in every respect. So, when you design a character (rather than Min-Maxing one), why do (Must) you obtain the absolute highest skill you can get (1 Skill at 6, or 2 Skills at 5)? Why is "Professional" not good enough for you?



Magic does cost more, and Average Joes are not Professional grade in 10 skills. They are lucky to be Professional grade in 1 or 2. My point is that it seems that everyone designs characters to the absolute best that they can be with the points available (Common Dice Pools in the high teens, if Dumpshock is to be believed), and then complain when those characters tend to destroy the story. Mages/Hackers/Riggers being the biggest example of this in the game (at least as far as I have experienced). It is interesting to note that when someone happens to suggest maybe scaling back that initial character, they are now "Gimping" or "Deliberately Handicapping" that character. And, of course, "NO SANE runner would have stats like that." Which I see as a very thin excuse to steamroll over any objections.

Actually, the game world (and its underlying structure) DOES support my view of how it should be, if it is applied. There are no examples of ANY character, PC or NPC in any of the rulebooks that I own, with Dicepools above 17, and most of them fall in the 10-14 category. The rebuttal to that is that they were obviously designed poorly. I disagree. I think they were designed with the game world in mind. So. WHY would you need a gunbunny with 30 Dice if that game world's typical ELITE opposition only has 15-17? For example. The Tir Ghosts have a professional Rating of 6, they are the elite opposition, and even THEY do not have a SKill of 6 or 7 in Firearms, are not maxed out in Attributes, and damn well spent more than 400 BP in their build. They are throwing 15 Dice to Firearms Attacks with a Smartlink (and only 17 with an Appropriate Specialization). They could have up to an additional +4 from a Tacnet, assuming they had the gear available to do so, which is likely. And you need 30 Dice why?

Yes, Many people here disagree with me on this. But there it is.

I have no issues with a character being specialized at creation, but when that specialty is greater than 20 Dice, in my opinion, there is a problem. Yerameyahu often gives me a hard time because I continually comment that, at our table, we have few to no issues with the game. That is because we do not have Pornomancers, 30 Dice Gunbunnies, 35 Dice Healers or Climbers, or Mages casting 8 Multicast Spells with 12 Dice each. Characters are people first, and then stats second. If you claim to be a World Class person in ANY field, your stats and skills BETTER back that up. And I can guarantee you that you cannot do that with 400 BP. I have seen many try that approach, and they always fall short. They never have enough points to build what they envision, and so have to make sacrifices to get even a portion of said character.

Sorry. Rant Over.

The way to fix magic is to remove the multi-cast rules completely. Just say no to multicasting.

I agree that Rare Statistically does not equate to Rare Demographically. My point ts that IF the Average Mage, in that Demographic, is Magic 3, why are all Shadowrunner Mages running around with a Magic Attribute of 5 or 6? It breaks verisimilitude to have that so. It breaks the game world.

"Average Shadowrunner" will suit me just fine. And the "Average Shadowrunner" is not running around with maxed out Attributes, Maxed out Special Atttributes, and Maxed out Skills in their specialty, with support skills nonexistant or so low that they are laughable. That is a luduicrous assumption. I have been playing Shadowrun for 20 years now, and I am very happy with the world, thank you very much Muspellheimr. Please do not assume to direct my gaming habits.

I am only trying to point out that the game world makes certain assumptions, that the vast number of Dumpshock members tend to ignore. And yet, theses forums are filled with topics about how broken stuff is. Even your own game, Muspellheimr, is riddled with a pages long document of house rules. Amazing how many of those issues disappear if you take the world structure into account.

I am curious, TheOOB. Why is a Mage, with a Magic Attribute of 2, not a character that is intended to be played as a Magician? Mine is quite powerful, even with such a low attribute. And no, he does not have any Bio or Cyberware. HE has ewven managed to survive in a game for almost 200 Karma. And yes, still only a Magic of 2. I will soon be raising it to a 3, mind you, but it is not a priority. Is he incapable fo harming anyonw with a Direct COmbat Spell. Most Likely. That would be why he does not have any. Of teh 31 Spells he currenlty has access to, he has NO Combat SPells and NO Illusion Spells. And yet, somehow he manages to provide immeasurable help to his team. He is a Support Mage to be sure. And has a lot of secondary skills to make himself useful when his magic is compromised. But he is a useful addition the team nonetheless.

So, please enlighten me as to why I am abusing the system with this character, as you indicated above.

As for the comparison th Firearms. The standard rebuttal is that the damage from Guns can be mitigated after Defense, while Direct Damage Spells only get a paltry, Single Attribute (+ Possible Skill) for Defense, and there is no Damage Mitigation. Now, for the recoed, I agree with what you said, and do not agree that Direct Damage Spells are broken. But that is the argument.

Looks like a straw man to me. Who said 'laughable support skills'? Shadowrunners tend to be well above average, period.

Go that way and characters with Regeneration will rejoice.

If you had seen some of the characters that I have seen. Laughable does not do them justice. Cannot tell you how often I see characters that have one or two really high skills (Shooting usually), and then 1's in everything else. That is laughable, especially if you are supposed to be a Professional Shadowrunner (like 400 BP is supposed to be).

Which takes me back to Concept. Your sheet should match your concept. If it does not, then you have failed.



Indeed they will.

But then you're splitting your dice pool and resisting 4 drain twice, and an assault rifle still does more damage.

The one big problem with a Magic 2 character, is that a Background Count of 2 (aspected or not) shuts him down completely. And getting to a BC of 2 is not all that hard.

It shuts down his *magic* completely. Don't presume that he doesn't have a lot of other tricks up his sleeve.

Sure, but then he's no better than the unaugmented pc everyone points to and laughs at.

Right up until he has Cleansing and/or Filtering to employ against that Domain. Negative Background Counts are a different thing, of course. But then, ALL magic is affected by such Background Count as you cannot cleanse them nor aspect them. They are quite rare, however, in comparison to the Positive background Counts.

So they are really good at one or two things and can actually get by without defaulting in everything else, just as a Professional Shadowrunner is supposed to be. I do not see where that it is laughable actually.

Professional means PROFESSIONAL... not Newb... Skills of one indicate someone with so little training that they cannot be called Professional. Stats of one indicate bare functionality for people. Seeing these on characters, who by background have been in the shadows for years, indicates a severe disconnect between the concept and the sheet. If you are okay with that, more power to you. I on the other hand prefer a bit of connection with the concept. More so than just a handwave.

Yes, I know that you cannot always get what you want on the sheet, and I will often make some allowances. But Severe Min-Maxing, as seen often here on Dumpshock, results in a character than has almost no basis in the concept. It is just a pet peeve of mine.

That would be a skill of 0. Someone who has 0 computer skill can still use a commlink for basic stuff and office work.
Skill 1=Minimal training. It's the level that a professional would get of skill he doesn't happen to use a huge amount.

Or a large, or even moderate amount. It's very, very small. But that doesn't even matter, because the stat+skill DP system seems to have no relationship with the skill-only fluff descriptions. Alas.

Which is only an issue if you allow it to be. If you enforce the Fluff, then it is no longer a problem.

You can't enforce fluff, and that doesn't even make sense. An Agility 7, Skill 3 character is vastly more skilled than Agility 2, Skill 3.

A typically stacked starting mage with 10-12 dice in spellcasting (5 magic, 5 spellcasting, 2 points from mentor spirit, focus, or specialization) can reliably deal - if he is casting so that he recieves no drain - 9 boxes of damage per spell. He'll be casting at Force 6, and netting about 4 hits on his spellcasting roll. The average target will reduce these 10 boxes of damage to 9. If the mage chooses to overcast to the level where he will take enough damage to give him a -1 from woundpenalties, this number jumps to 13 boxes, but the mage will be incrementally less potent as time goes by, and will eventually kill himself in so doing.
So in one round, using one complex action, the mage can do:
9 boxes of damage, on average, or
13 if he's willing to fuck himself up.

A typically stacked starting street sam will have 14 dice in his chosen gun - let's say pistols (5 pistols, 7 agility from muscle toner, +2 from smartlink) can reliably get 5 success on his attack rolls. Assuming the mage is typically statted and armored (for starting mages), he'll reduce that 5 attack successes to 4 with his reaction of 3. This gives us a base damage of 9, assuming regular rounds. The mage and his body of 3 + 8 ballistic armor (-1 for heavy pistol rounds) will reduce this 9 damage down to 5 damage. Then the street sam fires again, and the numbers repeat themselves. Now let's assume our Street Sam is using an SMG, with 4 points of recoil compensation - which is pretty trivial. On his first short burst, the Street sam will be doing 7 damage, not 5. On his second shot, he is statisically likely to be doing 6 damage. Not bothering to refactor the math to take wound penalties into account, this leaves us with the following information.
In one round, using two simple actions, the sam can do:
5 boxes of damage each simple action, for a total of 10 damage, with a pistol, or;
7 and 6 boxes of damage with burst fire, for a total of 13 damage with an SMG.

The numbers are shockingly similar. The primary difference is that spells are viscerally more frightening because they offer no recourse if they DO hit well. But statistically it is unlikely they will eclipse gunfire.

Edit:

Supposing the mage splits his diepool and rolls with two force 8 manabolts: he'll be rolling 6 dice on each attack, something a street sam can very likely resist ENTIRELY if there are any vision penalties, or he has high willpower. The mage will likely take 2 boxes of drain total. This is akin to preferring to roll a single 1d20 over 3 1d6 attacks: the maximum value is increased a bit, but the variance is much higher with stacked spells, and you aren't assured as much of a base result.

Same level of Knowledge, one just routinely gets better results. They both have the same level of skill though.

And you CAN enforce Fluff, I do it all the time, in multiple game systems...

If you give me a character concept that says you are an elite Ex-Spec Ops Team Member, and then your sheet shows me that you can shoot A Single category of Weapons - say Automatics (4-5), have a decent amount of Stealth (Group Skill so 3-4) and all other skills are at 1-2? I will tell you to go back to the drawing board. That is enforcing Fluff. I expect a certain level of believability in my games. And a character such as that breaks verisimilitude 6 ways from Sunday. Same would go for a Hacker, Rigger, Mage or Face. If you are not what your concept says you are, then there is something wrong. And no, I do not tend to accept "Me Grog... Me Kill things..." type of characters.

I tend to assist those who really want to have a character that will work in any game that I run. I work with them to make sure it fits my world, and what they see as their concept. Part of that is making sure that the character fits Fluff and Concept. I am shocked that others do not do that as well.

I consider my characters to be part of a professional shadowrunning team.
A min-maxed character is someone who was polishing their gun while the face negotiated for a larger reward, thinking about recoil mechanics while the hacker brought down security, and shooting at the range while everyone else was partying, elated with their success.

A min-maxer doesn't care about those other abilities, and doesn't want to spend time on them. He doesn't need to if the rest of his party is up to date on their roles too.
That's how I see it anyway.