Yeah, I think Shapechange may be one of the most confusingly worded spells there is. For example, say you have Body 3 and turn into a rat. Now, a rat's typical stats are going to be on the low side (1-3), but you get +1 to all stats per hit... does that let you go beyond the racial maximum? What IS the racial maximum for [animal]? Do you get proficiency in the skills a typical animal of that type has (fly, natural weapons)?
So the spell is confusing. But what I like is that it rewards you for having 2-3 Body, because otherwise you can't turn into really small animals, which are very good for infiltration purposes.




The idea of multicasting may be salvageable (there is also multi-shooting with two guns, or melee-attacking everyone standing close together), but it really needs to be looked at very carefully to limit abuses. It might be simpler to scrap the option as being not completely necessary and difficult to repair.





It's very unfortunate that making munchkinized mages is probably easier than making a halfway decent Sam. But avoiding traps in character creation and preventing powergaming is almost impossible in any point-buy system. With great freedom in CharGen comes great responsibility.

Like what? Concealment is THE POWER OF SNEAK. There is NOTHING in the book like it. You say a chameleon suite is as good? Well, unless the guy has thermographic vision..
This is an other thing with the shadowrun rules. The different "vision" are not flashed out enough, that means overall dicepool-boni go a long way.
There should be situational modifiers for how you "try to spot" somebody.
To go to the extream: Ultrasound, Radar or even detect enemy should need nethits to pinpoint the location/find somebody. While normal vision should be working very good.
This would give things like chameleon suite a boost, because in "normal" Situation it really would give you a bonus. And be it effectively just +2.



Why? It is the smart thing to do. It is the differance between getting out clean and adding a few more holes to your body.



This you need to houseroule, I agree. I would just say double is natural max and x2.5 is augmented may. I would not give skills by transforming into a rat, but for example if you have the atlethic group you get flying, because it is part of the group.


Points about mages:
I think they are just too much a jack of all trades far too easy.
Just make every "group" of magic and every type of spirit an different skill. (But get rid of ritual spellcasting and binding)
So you have following skills possible as a mage:
Spellcasting:
Healing, Combat, Manipulation, Illusion, Detection and Counterspelling.
Summoning:
Air, Fire, Earth, Beast, Water, Man, Plant, Guardian, Task, Counselor and Bannishing

A Group consists of two Spirits/Spell categories and bannishing/Counterspelling.

(It is just not right, that shooting someone with a pistol and shooting someone with a MP are different skills but making heads explode and unexploding heads is the same skill)

Yes, a mage how can easy pick up stunbolt, detect life, heal, Combat reflexes, increased reflexes, influence and invisibility is just very good.

Counterspelling should be revisited. Actually all the boni systems in SR should be revisited. The major issue is, that everything stacks.

I can get behind splitting up Spellcasting. I'm not so enthusiastic about splitting Summoning, because I doubt people will really need more than 1-2 spirit types (the spirit types just aren't different enough).

@Ascalaphus
Well, because you get everything for free there. The spells you need to buy at least.
And if you have to choose as an hermetic mage if you take the beast, the fire or better the earth spirit, it is not that easy. (Yeah, the spirit of man is taken anyway, right)

Right, a beast sprit will be along a fire or an airspirit most of the time... But not always. And this is the issue I have with mages mostly. It is not they can go a destinct route to solve a distinct problem. You go mage and you get the solution for most Problems with one or two skills.

A basic example is if you need to move huge amounts of material as fast as possible. If you just got yourself a spirit of man and a spirit of air, they won't be much of a help.
In fact the sam might even be stronger.
But if you can just call upon a spirit of earth, well the sam will look like a ten year old compared to that.

Need to change the weather? Take a spirit of water. Etc. pp.

Is Flying a skill you pick up when you're practicing climbing, running, and swimming? I understand the rules-logic of saying Flying is part of the Athletics group, but the in-game-logic is a bit more of a challenge.

So if you don't gain the animal's skills, how do your own skills carry over? If you turn into a big squid, is your humanoid training in Unarmed Combat really applicable?

@3278
Yes, it is not a 100% correct simulation. But it is by far not as bad as "standart SR rules" go.


Actually I had to laugh as soon as I read this...
As a matter of fact if you do a lot of sports you start to become good at "all sports". Not on a professional level but you will do ok for privat stuff.
So yes, a athletik group of 6 should maybe not give you flying 6 if you never had wings before, but on the other hand look at how skills are handled in SR so far...
You can be a very good shoot with MPs but as soon as you pick up a light pistol you can't hit anything...

@Ascalaphus
Why not? Again it is not 100%, true. But look at the rest of SR rules. They are handwaving a lot more.

What about giving the caster the critter's skills at half-value? This would represent the inherent ability of the form to do tasks for which is has evolved, while reflecting the fact that metahuman kinesics are wildly different.

In truth, I've always stripped the critter's skills altogether. In my mind, the spell [by effectively swallowing you in the Essence of Dog or whatever] gives you enough capability to use the body without collapsing in a heap or drowning, but it doesn't make you skilled, which requires a kind of training beyond what you get from the physical body's abilities [which are reflected by Attributes]. Most dogs don't really have an Unarmed Combat of 2; they default, just like most humans would; I certainly don't give Shapeshifting spellcasters an Unarmed Combat skill.

That said, I don't think it's ever come up. No one here ever turns into a seagull for its skills.

Reliance upon a single thing is bad. Have you never heard or experienced that? I have IRL.



Since Observational skills are so easy to boost, the extra few dice are almost insignificant (Unless you are summoning something so outrageously powerful anyways that you would melt from the Drain, at least at our table). I have seen PC's with Perception rolls in the Mid to High 20's. I have found that a Chameleon Suit is by far more accessible, and easy to maintain, than the Concealment Power is. It works against the Grrunts, as it should; Adding another -4 (or whatever the Spirit's Force is) to the Prime Runner Opposition, due to Concealment, has almost no effect at all (I find Confusion a muh better deal overall, in fact). At that point, you need other tricks up your sleeve. You know, not being a one trick pony and all that. Oh, and Thermographic Vision is very easy to ignore with your Chameleon Suit. There are Mods for that.



The Mage is SUPPOSED to be the Jack of all Trades. She pays for that by being Target Number 1. If you are casually throwing powerful spells all over the place, you will meet a final end, and sooner rather than later. I see no need to perform all the hoodoo you enumerate above. There are already many ways to control a Mage character. Use them, and the Mage will not be all that much of a problem, as compared to other archetypes. I often find a well constructed Street Samurai to be much more of a challenge to control than the average PC Magician.

As for the Dichotomy between Spellcasting and Firearms. It already has an easy solution. How often does your Magician Character take the Sorcery Group? or the Conjuring Group? If the Magician is not doing so, he loses out on some very important abilities for his archetype. Now, how many Street Samurai's take the Firearms Group? Again, if they do not, then they are losing out on one of the most important abilities of a Street Sam. You cannot complain that you are constrained, if you constrain yourself.

Maybe, when a character is being created, you (the generic you) should look at the concept and choose your abilities based upon the concept rather than upon the ultimate Dice Pool that you can amass. If you are a Street Sam, you should likely have the Firearms group. If you only take Automatics, because you want to be the Ultimate best in the world at shooting an SMG (or whatever), and the rest of your character does not reflect that, well maybe you should go back to the drawing board. Stats should match concept. If you did that, almost all issues of the character generation process, and play in general, would be a thing of the past. BUT, because many peopole want to have the ultimate badass, things are overlooked, or just downright ignored, in the pursuit of the Biggest Dice Pool Imaginable.

Sorry... Started preaching again... I now return you to your regularly scheduled topic.

You can Fly Without the Flying Skill... Flying is like Running, It only Increases your Flight Speed...

And again, your comparison is off. Yes, the Game makes it more difficult to be good with all weapons. In my experience, that is not all that bad. I have seen some EXCEPTIONAL Marksmen/Snipers in my time. Many of them (not all, to be sure) sucked with Pistols. To the point that I did not feel safe around them. By the same token, I have known many Pistol officianadoes that could not hit the broad side of a barn with a Shotgun from 10 paces. Though they may be similar, they are not the same. That is why, if you are skilled in multiple weapon platforms, you should probably take the Group skill, rather than the Individual Skills. Those who takl the individual skills are, in my experience, trying to boost their DP's at the expense of something they "can pick up later in play, as it will be cheaper." That is the entirely wrong attitude, in my opinion.

That being said, I have absolutely no issue with someone takling a single firearms skill, instead of the group, IF THAT IS THE ONLY EXPOSURE THEY EVER
HAD.

Because as you train, your Body, Strength, Agility, and Reaction all increase. Those things, in my mind, disappear when you cast Shapechange. The mental component of what cross-training gets you - a better understanding of human kinesics - isn't particularly useful when you're a falcon.


Well, I guess I don't think, "Some other rules don't make sense," is a good reason not to make new rules make sense. [I'd rule you can have half your Automatics dice pool to shoot your light pistol, if you as a player came to me with that objection.]

Every time I hear one of these die pool sizes people see, it just blows my mind. It's awesome to see that one game can support such a broad variety of power levels.

No doubt... My typical character is throwing 6-9 Dice or so for Perception Rolls. The fact that you CAN go to almost 30 makes no nevermind. However, I do have a Character (The CyberLogician I used to play) with a DP in Perception of about 15-21 (Dependant upon Sense involved). He does not miss much... Ever...

That being said... Most of those characters, with those piles of Dice, are located right here on Dumpshock.

I think if Shapechange comes up, I'll rule that any skills the animal has in its text block replace whatever rating the subject of the spell has, for good or ill.

Worse thing that happens is you hate that and try something different.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein

Well, lets see. Easy force 8 spirit to summon on the go for -8 dice for the opposition? And if shit hits the fan, you do something different...
A force 8 spirit means you have to beat 8 dice and will get up to 16 drain but mostly around 4-6. (Which can be healed with a medkit or even soaked...)
(And if it is to hard for your character, well take force 7 or 6)


Yeah, welcome to the funny land of the broken perception skill... What stacks? What can be used for what/against what? How much Net hits do you need for which result...
Still, even with 30 dice (which like 20+ works only if your GM is asleep. ) -6 is still a lot, because of the nethit you need and the simple fact, that you are also having your pool for sneaking. (And agility is really easy to boost)
(So you get yourself -6 concealment, -4 Chamelon suite adds allready up to -10)

Depends, on the fact if the power interacts with wards or doesn't. Critterpowers are always kind of "dubious" on that one...
Still, it stacks and Chameleon Suit only works against ONE kind of perception. Concealment works on EVERYTHING.



You mean to the point that the pistol regulary exploded in their hand (critical glitch)... No, I did not think so.
It is one thing to say a good sniper (skill 4) sucks with pistols (skill 2). It is another thing if this guy is rolling 7 dice for the sniper rifle and two dice for the pistol...

You have the attitude to say things which are basically correct, but so out of the scale of the situation...

Well, if you are OK with that, so be it. But if you ever run into a smart mage, you will see how he will solve runs on his own. (Unless you strike him down with BC and "special" opposition...)

Depends how you build your runs. If knocking the door down is the easiest way, yes the street sam will be better of. If their are other ways aside, the mage might supprise you...

AGAIN:
1. YOU DO NOT PAY SHIT FOR CONCEALMENT. It is even easier to get for a mage than it is to get the suite. The mage needs at most 6 secs to get it.
2. Yes there are other ways... Still, your Chameleon-bonus is out of the window...
@3278

Truth be told, it can't. As soon as you use different boni out of different sources it kind of breaks down.




Well, that is actually a very hard call, how much this will give you. I disagree with "nothing"... If you used to run parcour, you might be more compfortable moving on four legs like a wolf.

The point is, you start with this char and he will have athletic and shapechange. So he will just claim to have flown a bit around and get the skill. (You might want to give a malus for "wrong body" but still, I think skills should carry over. You payed for them, so you should be able to use them...
And one skill for every animal..... Thats just beyond...

And maybe this ins't the solution people want to hear but if a character breaks everyone else's fun has any tried just talking to the player in question? I mean if it's that big of a deal, why wouldn't you do something about it?

That's just crazy. It would never work. Conflicts cannot be resolved with words. They require obscure rules, extreme scenarios and piles of dice. The GM is the opposition. The enemy. If she wants you to stop doing something it's because she's afraid of losing Shadowrun, because your character is too awesome.

Heh. The point of rules-based RPGs is to force the GM to personally deal with as few problems as possible. The numbers exist to deal with the balance. Yes, the GM can always do anything (and everything), but that's beside the point. A good system is one where the GM doesn't have to gut-call every little thing, nor approve them, etc.

Seriously we need a plus one style button on this site. Thanks Thorya, I laughed aloud at that!

And Yerameyahu-I think the game meets that criteria. I have to make some calls from time to time, but I don't need everything explicitly spelled out for me. I just need the framework to be internally consistent.

Yeah, to a point, and in general. This is a rather tricky thing though;

On the one hand, solid rules mean that the GM doesn't have to make a lot of arbitrary decisions about whether a player's plan succeeds or fails. If you have to decide on a rule because a player is trying to do something, there's an element of arbitrariness to it. Houseruling things because a character has gotten out of hand is always hard, because "unbalanced" isn't something you can objectively measure and make precise fair adjustments to. So if at any time you have to fix a problem with a rule already being "used", it's hard.
An example in this category would be the way Power Foci interact with Multicasting: it sucks if the rule is changed ("balanced") after you've made a mage and sunk a lot of BP into that R4 Power Focus.

On the other hand, a lot of problems are caused by communication and personality. Players have certain expectations, and certain ways of behaving, which can cause friction with other players. The same goes for the GM. You can't really solve these problems with rules, it needs to be handled socially.
An example for this is, that if you have a player who just happens to be a powergamer, that might attract him to playing a mage and hogging the spotlight. Fiddling with the mage rules isn't really going to solve it, you need to deal with the player, try to make him see how he's affecting the other players and get him to tone it down a bit. (I have a theory that powergamers are attracted to mages, and that this is a major part of the bad name mages have gotten.)

So it's crucial to properly determine what is really the problem when the mage seems to be a Problem. Is it the player? Is it the magic rules? Is it the other players struggling with the more complex rules for making a good mundane? Is the GM just stuck for ideas on how to believably challenge the mage in-game, with NPC strategies?

And not every group will have the same problems. Some groups have only saints as players, who would never ruin another's fun with powergaming. And yet they bump into problems where the magic rules just don't quite work. And other groups aren't really suffering from rules problems, but have a bad apple player. Lumping it all together and complaining bitterly about MagicRun isn't going to help.

One thing that is not consistent are direct combat spells - every other attack in the game gets 2 rolls to mitigate damage, as with direct combat spells you only get the willpower (+counterspelling) test. Combined with much less drain than direct combat spells, this makes them really disbalancing.

Definitely! If we're talking about relative damage of firearms, we have some real-life knowledge to fall back on, even real-life experimentation, if it comes to that. But trying to decide how much your athletic prowess effects your ability to do something your body cannot requires a complete imagination of the circumstance, and a great deal of speculation.


I can't really see how, but if one of my players made this argument to me, and had four dice in parkour, I'd probably let him carry an extra die or two into Running as a wolf. As a GM, I'm seldom prepared to sweat a die or two if someone's that committed in thought.


I would have no difficulties with characters taking "Flight (Animal Form)" as a skill. If the character has spent enough time flying to become skilled at it, then I'd expect to see the Skill on the character's sheet.


I'm not sure I'd go that far, but the human form is radically different from most animal forms someone would turn into. I wouldn't make someone take "Running (Wolf)" and "Running (Horse)," but if it came up, I wouldn't mind letting a character take "Running (Quadruped)." And, of course, the character would be able to run without the skill, just as they'd be able to fly or swim without the skill.

@3278
Human and monkey is not that big a differance like for example crocodile and colibri.
(I am in favor of a more abstract approach to prevent too much gut-calls.)

So if you have running as a skill I would let you "run" with it. You will get in serious problems if you manage it the other way. What is with a pixie does she need flying(eagle)? Does an eagle shapeshifter need flying colibri? What would all be part of the athletic group?

(The point is running for example has also much do do with breathing the right way. This would carry over as long as you have lungs.)


I had parkour as an example for using most of the athletics group. Running, climbing, acrobatics...

It's so much better than the Indirect spells that it's not very funny, that's true. And it may be unbalanced; at least towards the Indirect spells, at any rate. So that's a reason to change it.

On the other hand, just because magic works differently from guns isn't good enough reason for me; I'm fine with magic being able to do some odd things because, magic.

I agree with you on this one. If it is really killing the fun, then you should talk to the player. If it isn't killing the fun and no one seems to care, then so be it.

In the shadowrun games i've played magician characters stay around one or two... at least it isn't like StarWars where everyone at the table wants to be a Jedi cause they are just so powerful.

I've more or less outlined my points, The thing that I find telling here is so few actually say that mages arn't more powerful then their mudnane coutnerparts. The point is instead made that they can be brought back into line with constant GM attention and tweaking and making sure gentleman agreements not to run roughsod over others area of speciality exist. That to me is exactly a sign of why the system is broken and why it's very hard for me to get into the Shadowrun mindset lately. Other then for the spunky underdog feel why play a mundane? Want to be varied and confident in multiple fields or just not having to worry about your abilities being negated by most enviromental affects (needing to divest of firearms for a meet etc) play a mage. Want to be a walking little god stoppable only by other walking little gods, play a mage. As a GM if you don't want to have to put houserules, constant background count, a mage, or complicated magical opposition in every opposition group it's somewhat unsatisfying. If you have to tweak it that hard why mess with it.

All this is simply a matter of costs, most if not all of the inherent costs and risks of using magic have been taken away. Now it is the no drawback path to power, do anything you want at any time unless your in a situation specifically tailored to negate your abilities and even then you have options, you can always cleanse or fallback on a gun.

I rarely have a game these days make it to that end of the power level spectrum, so I rarely deal with the potentially broken parts, and just don't understand them well enough to say one way or the other. I know it seems broken in spots, and in others i think it's supposed to be the way it is. But I guess it's a play style thing: how powerful do you want magic to be?

My own answer is I like that magic can do things that machines can not. But I do agree, absolutely, that with great power comes even greater drawbacks and consequences.

In play outside of a few cases where we were testing the boundaries of the system I have not seen it be broken much at all. Street sams performed just as well or better than mages in a lot of situations, deckers had their thing etc. Can it be broken sure, but you can stupidly break any archtype but for some reason when its done by mages it becomes a huge balance of power mages vs the mundanes thing instead of just being about a player that does not fit your game. This isn't to say there aren't things I wouldn't change under magic to make them a bit more sane but I'd change things in cyber/bioware, I'd change things in the technomancer/hacker side of thing as well. Maybe we just see the loopholes more now, and I did not play 3e that much but if anything 4e is the least balanced of editions IMO. Still you kind of have to go out of your way to screw with things in most cases so I the balance thing has not been a huge issue to me. This is especially so now that I've seen 4e D&D and the obsession with perfect balance in a game. Yeah it was balanced, it just wasn't fun anymore.

That being said some of the things in the magic arena are wonky on the balance side not just in the character build but in how you utilize even a non-minmaxed mage in play. I see this primarily I'd say in overcasting. I don't know about others but I never summoned force 8-9 spirits in SR2 yet it can be pulled off almost routinely in SR4. Overcast spells are a much smaller issue since how damage works is totally different, a force 5 spell in SR2 could have done deadly damage which is kind of like a force 10 spell now.

Things I'd change: up the drain of spells a bit, summoning drain would start off at x2 force, bound would be x3 force, I'd bring back but change grounding or come up with some other limit to focuses since I think it is lame a mage is running around with 4 passes all the time, you want that get some cyber and wreck your essence, deadly damage would again have a chance to drop your magic rating. Magic was just a lot more interesting when it had risks associated with using it.

@Shinobi Killfist

Because they are not comparable. A Hacker for example can "hack" stuff. It is up to the GM what actually can be hacked.
A street level oppostion won't have much stuff that can be hacked, because they probably would not be able to maintain it.
(They have cars where the board computer is down for years and which are still driving, at half efficiency, due to jurry rigging.)
A high level opposition has the knowledge and the means to secure their stuff.

Yes, a hacker won't have much of a problem hacking the commlink a gang leader is using. But he is a hacker afterall.


This would not make it more interesting, this would make it more frustrating!
Nerv foki?
So I wait for my ally spirit with a force of 6 to 7 to sustain those spells for free. (As spirit powers)
(If those will set off wards is another question)
(Or I just stay astral all the time, because I will have to stay looking at this plane anyway and a guardian spirit may give counterspelling to my group)

The major issue is not, in my opinion, that mages are generally too strong (as doing a lot of damage, having huge pools...)
The point is, that their abilities do not come with limitations.
For example: Possession spirits work just fine if you do the roleplaying of preparing the vessel, lighting candels etc. But as soon as you realize that you actually do not have to do any of that... You are actually just able to summon your spirit while beeing astral and order it to posses one security guard and beat/shoot/shock the crap out of the other security guards. NOBODY can defend against this kind of action!
A similar thing is with materialising spirits, which just shift planes all the time. (Shift planes, start combat, supprise test (spirit wins due to high attributes), unaware of attack bonus and shift back.)
Same thing with storing your spirits in metaplanes. They are out of the way and with you in a matter of seconds. As long as the mage does not use this option it won't be a problem. But the option is out there!
Just make it take some time untill the spirit arrives and make it take some time to "change planes". You still get all the supprise tests and you may still start combat, but you won't be able to get back to avoid any counterattack.
Lets say: It takes Force minutes/combat rounds or even just seconds until a summoned spirit appears. To call a spirit you already have bound from the metaplanes takes half the time.

Possession spirits need to manifest and than move to the target they want to posses (moving speed should be quite slow). So if you supprise a guard you may posses him. But he still stands a chance to run away or hide behind a ward. (Or would you do the same things to players. "Your char is possesed and starts killing the team"! (..and you can't do much about it, because you know have (additional to your armor) immunity to normal weapons, very high attributes and skills, Counterspelling and so on...)

This is in my opinion the major differance between mages and mundane. The Sam (as does the drone rigger or the hacker) needs to plan the whole mission and has to think of what he would probably need for it and what he can't bring along. ("You will really have your drone fleet follow you to the meeting in the AA district?")
The mage does not. (This is actually the other way around in other games)
The mage can call a spirit the second before the shit hits the fan. A sam has not the ability to "call" a gauss rifle.
(So yes, if planning is not part of your game, true it does not matter much. But this is true for everything. If shooting/fighting is not part of your game a sam might not be a good choice in any way)

A lot of people seem to think that mages are strong because a stunbolt drops an opposit fighter. Thats good, no question. But playing a mage because you want to knock people out is like studying medicine because you want a reason to carry around a scaple with you...
Magic is not about using the same methode but with magic, it is about using an approach the rest could not take.

If you start thinking not only about "making things better than the sam" but making things really differently... Mages start to become very, very powerful.
To pay 10 Karma and 50k for reliably having 4 passes is good, no question about it. But it is not really the thing, that makes mages what they are...

A really good house rule would be forcing mages to learn Spells at Force in the same manner that Technomancers learn Complex Forms. Allow them to "Thread" the Spell with an Arcana test in the same way. This way they potentially have to take Drain tests twice (for threading and for casting) and it hampers overcasting. It also forces them to buy another skill with reduced points available in order to have their current flexibility. Spirits now cause Physical Drain if they have Force > (Magic / 2). At Force > Magic they roll 2x the number of dice to resist summoning (just like Binding). Binding should stay unchanged since that takes time and money. Alternatively just reinstate the Domain rules for all Summoned (not Bound) spirits. Another alternative would be to base the increased Drain on Charisma since it is less powerful a stat as Magic. Sustaining also used to increase Drain by +2 TN (or about 1 hit in SR4 terms) in addition to making tests more difficult so you could also throw that in to make life more difficult.

God, the more I look at SR3 the more I realize just how unbalanced SR4 is. Fanpro/Catalyst really screwed the pooch with this edition.

Can't disagree with this more. But then, we very rarely see Edge cases at our table, which is where BOTH editions tend to break down.

Remember who started it and who got to try and fix it.

I love the mischaracterization of my position earlier as regarding mage combatants and rigorously applying situational modifiers and rules.

If I have a gunbunny tossing 20 dice... yeah he's likely to hit... the game is seemingly made with the assumption that after surprise and things like cover and basic tactics (non-idiocy) take hold. There will be about 2-10 dice in favor of the defender in terms of negative situational bonuses and cover. (+2 target running, +4 cover... -2 attacker running -2 visibility... -1 range)... suddenly that huge starting pool starts to get a lot thinner outside the initial surprise round. If suddenly it's dark at night and he doesn't have low-light or thermo vision... he's got a problem.

Normally gun types roll more dice than mage types to start with (typical starting mage is only about 8-12 dice, with 8-10 drain dice), but have more penalties which are applied more rigorously by GM's. My assertion was that the same ones which the rules clearly state are supposed to be applied against mages aren't. Also normally gun types do more damage than a mage in one round.. the caveat being that while they do a lot more raw damage, about half of it gets soaked by armor/body.

As far as the system goes. Mages really aren't all that much more deadly than any other combat types, IF THEY"RE BUILT as a combat type. A combat mage isn't likely to have nearly as many utility spells though once he's started with say 3 combat spells or so to start. However any kind of serious edge I don't think starts to show until characters have maxed out their relevant skills/attributes and a few hundred karma have been spent. This practically never happens in most games.

It's a shame so much of this thread revolves solely around tactical combat.

SR3 wasn't really any more balanced than SR4. With the ability to start with Force: 6 foci at the start of the game (and use more than one focus at a time), Totems that gave up to +3 dice to combat spells, and a spell pool to pour into your spellcasting, you could potentially throw a lot of dice.

There were also a lot of ways to resist Drain. Fetish or exclusive modifications lowered the Force of the spell for purposes of Drain - this also let you take a point or two of 'ware with less consequences. You could withhold dice from foci or the spell pool to help resist Drain.

The Force of the spell was used as the TN to resist them - Force: 6 spells were deadly. And direct combat spells were still only resisted with Body or Willpower. There was no overcasting, but spellcasters could choose to cast spells at damage code: D. One net hit, and instant kill. You could often do this, and still soak the Drain.


SR4 is only broken at the edge of things (multicasting and adding dice from a Force: 4 power focus multiple times, super-high Force spirits, possession on involuntary targets, overcasting as a standard tactic rather than a desperation one, and unlimited advancement when everything else is limited), and can be fixed with a few reasonable house rules.

I was going to get into it - I think SR4 is a sodden, broken mess - but then I realized we probably shouldn't get into another conversation about SR3 vs SR4, particularly in a thread not really about that.

Can we argue about Clips Vs. Magazines again then?

I was dismayed today to realize I'd spent quite some time in the "Can we beatt he Horrors?" thread a couple years back, although I was relieved that I'd not remembered doing so.


In effectively every other way, mages outpace mundanes by a terrifying margin. If I could do any one of the things that's a Shadowrun spell - heal massive trauma, become invisible, turn into a bird - I'd be a superpower unto myself. Hackers aside, there's no class in Shadowrun that can claim the kind of beyond-combat ability a magician can. The nature of Shadowrun means that there are various areas of proficiency: combat, social, infiltration, etc - and mages can do all of them in a way no other type of character can. Shadowrun magic will always be more powerful than Shadowrun mundanity, if we step outside of combat.

Excellent summary of the SR3 rules Glyph.

I also remember SR2 being a LOT worse in terms of magical power (skipped out on the SR3 years, though I picked up the book and read the rules a while back). So I don't know where people keep coming off with SR3 was so much better for mundanes vs. magic. I can only guess that it's the rose tinted lens of fond memories.

Though you forgot one of the other elements which made mages hard to kill in SR3. Mages had both combat pool and spellcasting pool. So they were able to reserve their combat pool pretty much exclusively to defense against mundanes.

My own perception of both SR2 and SR3 is that the imbalance of power was much worse than in SR4 [where I perceive mages to have been nerfed], but this may simply have to do with the fact that I'm more familiar with SR2/3 than I am with 4, so I may simply know more of the exploits.

My impression is that SR2 the exploits were more on the character building side of things and not in the decisions you made during play. SR4 has broken elements in the decisions during play side of things. I find the character building side of exploits easier to deal with. I did not play much of 3 so I can't speak for it.

Which begs the question: Has the mage to be a "combat-monster", too?

Once again i seem to play a completely different game than all of you do. IMHO the imbalance between magicians and mundanes are, that most players and GM´s know more about the meat world than they know about magic. So the sam gets the full load of situational modifiers (cover, light, movement), while the mage can play around like he wants to. You don´t have to nerf the mages so that they become equal, you simply have to know the rules better.

There is shapechange, but would you ever use it if it means you end up as an unarmored critter? For what? The flavour? It is fun as long as nothing happens.

There is invisibility - but there is also a chameleon suit, thermal dampening etc.

There are situational modifiers - they also work for magic - use them.

There is background count - solely playground for mages - use it.

There is drain - guns usually don´t fire back at you - so use it. SR needs dice and dice tend to roll sh**it if you don´t want it. Wait for it.

IMHO the only difference between a mage and a sam is the way of planning. The sam can buy upgrades, but it takes some kind of micromanagement. The mage has everything with him, but he cannot buy stuff to advance his skills. I really don´t see a problem, but with the GM.

With equal planning time both mundane and magical can be equal if facing off one on one. If either got the drop on the other then it’s the same as any other surprise situation when you don’t have a gun drawn your toast.

Heres a scenario

A street sam and a mage walk into a corp building both with good fake id to get them in. This should be a cake walk right through the first security check point if it wasn’t for some of the security measures

1) Security have scanners - The mage strolls right through without a care as he is 100% full metahuman no ware here thank you very much - The sam is worried his chrome might give him away but he has some fake licences and a good story to back it up "yes sir I had some work done was in a terrible car crash had to be welded back together it was that bad, here are my licences thank you"

Both get through with a little worry from the sam but nothing to stressful this is just normal work so far

2) Security have a Barghest - The same walks straight past abit quicker then normal because of a bad experience with a dog when he was a kid but doesn’t worry to much, he's explained his ware to the guards so if the dog picks up on the dark patches in his aura he should be ok. The mage on the other hands abit nervous his ID is showing him as mundane so he isn’t watched like a hawk for being a mage. He has masking but still the dog might notice his brighter then normal glow in the astral especially with this focus running. Best turn it off to get through and hope the dog doesn’t notice the aura.


Both get through with some quick thinking from the mage stopping himself glowing like a beacon, means he needs to recast when he gets a chance to be alone and still have to be careful.



Now the dog can be replaced with wards, or watcher spirits to do the same thing or worse a adept on site with astral sight as part of the security detail (rare but possibly cheaper to employ then a mage for security work).


Situational stuff can balance without being to silly to either mundane or awakened cause lets face it if you as GM let someone put all their karma into one thing and then knock them down at every turn for being that one thing its abit to much GM against the PC's in my mind.

I think a misconception some people have is that a balanced game is the same as everyone being equally good.

It's great if characters are good at different things. It's fine that you can do things with magic that you can't do mundanely, and that mundane methods are prohibitively hard or expensive to duplicate with magic.

Where it can get troublesome is if two players make characters intended essentially for the same role, such as a dedicated combat mage and a specialized Sam - they're competing for the same bit of spotlight. If one of them is seen to be much better at it, that might irritate the others.

Combat can be the trickiest of these; people may tend to equate body count with coolness, and the mage with stunball is outdoing the Sam (because of the tricky grenade scatter rules). I think it becomes less problematic if characters (mage or not) are well-adapted to each other, with each of them having something essentially important to do that the others have a hard time with. For example, the mage may be great at crowd control but the Sam is better at high-end opponents that you need ridiculous dice pools to hit. Or vice versa.

This isn't even specifically a rule thing, so much as character design - players can give each other some space, not buy abilities that would totally usurp another character's role. Just because a mage can learn a spell doesn't mean he has to; he could learn a different spell.

It gets a bit wonky if a mage can effortlessly pick up on another PC's job, especially if that PC is then left without a vital function. It's very easy to see how this can be done with magic, because the rules for doing stuff with magic are more transparent than doing it with tricky assemblages of gear. However, it's not just experienced mages who can do "niche invasion" - the Sam with Agility 9 could step on the B&E specialist's toes, and the Charisma-oriented technomancer could compete with the Face by threading Empathy software, and the rigger and hacker can easily bleed over into each other's niche. Skillwires or high (augmented) Attributes make it easy to invade another's niche.

So this is player responsibility territory. If another PC is already covering the niche well, why invade it by buying Power X? It's unfriendly, and it isn't optimal use of Karma either: you could be spending it on something that isn't already covered by the party, or to become better at your own niche. On the other hand, if the other player has been having a rough time because the number of enemies doubled, then buddying up may be welcome. Secret tip: ask the other player how he feels about you investing in Power X to team up!






Turning into a rat, fish or a pigeon is very useful for infiltration purposes. Don't think of shapechange as a buff spell, it's far more useful for other things.




It seems that making a good Sam is just harder. It's not that you can't afford it in BP terms - you can. But figuring out all the rules, learning how to gain advantage from the situational modifiers, which implants have synergy, all that, is just harder than magic. There is so much equipment to choose from, that making a Sam is really hard. Actually, it's surprising that magic is the rules-simpler way to do stuff in an RPG!

---

What I've said above doesn't mean that magic and mundane are working perfectly together in SR4; I don't think so. I do think that "MagicRun" is an exaggeration, and that with a combination of players being considerate with each other and fixing some rough spots in the rules, mixing magic and mundanes can work out quite well.

I prefer your opinion, but i don´t share it 100%. Of course, if you place a stunball with enough successes and your targets f**ck their dice-roll up, a mage can outshine every sam in combat, but this doesn´t happen very often. Most of the time you have hardly enough successes to hit all wanted targets (yeah, cover rules apply) and if you are really out of luck, some of them even outroll your 1-2 successes. Even if the don´t, you really have to overcast seriously to take them down with a one-shot. And you NEED the one-shot, because else THEY have the next pass and then several targets are going to shoot in your direction. They don´t even need high skills, because you are a mage and YOUR attributes (reaction and agility) are usually NOT augmented. Why? Because you don´t have karma to spend it on attributes that are not needed for your magic. The sam on the other hand can strike multiple times, with special ammo and special weapons. And if he doesn´t take them out in a single-whipe, he has high skills and attributes to survive the "answer" until it is his turn again. So who cares a sh**t that direct combat spells ignore armor, if you load APDS in an assault rifle? Who cares about an overcast force 10 manabolt if you can create an Ares Alpha Combatgun with zero recoil at long bursts that cause around 15P and -5 AP? Who cares about a one-shot manaball if you have an Armtech MGL-6 with semi-auto-fire? I don´t. Combat is the least thing i try to compete with sams. I also don´t turn into a body 0 (plus net successes) pidgeon or body 1 rat if there could be a threat around. Even a cat could kill you so this spell has only one true reason in my game-world: escape if all other options don´t work anymore. Before I turn into something helpless like a bird, rodent or else, leave armor, pricy equipment and weapons behind, the sh**it REALLY have to hit the fan. If i want to infiltrate a place, i rather send a spirit. Because every ward (in your games) stops you anyway, no matter if you sustain a spell, or if you send a spirit. The only difference is, that you keep your ass save if you send somebody else, eh?

Regarding the micromanagement a sam has to do, comparing ´ware really is not an argument. They simply add dice and the rules are so clear, that you really don´t get any problems with them. I was talking about stuff like detectors, combinations of stuff you need for explosives etc. THIS is a pain in the ass, because you carry around a lot of gizmos and you need to know all of them.
One big advantage of ware is, that you have them available all the time and simultaniously. Go on and try to sustain all spells needed to compare that. Or try to go ANYWHERE with all the spell-locks active that carry these spells. You know, there are still all these strange wards out there and acc. to canon they are cheap and common. So IMHO, it is quite the other way round. The life as a mage is hard, as hard as the life of every other runner-class. IF your GM knows the rules.

@Lansdren
Well, this is actually the primary problem.
Start fleshing out your scenario a bit more.
WHAT ware does the SAM have and as what are they posing?

And now you will see, that such a backtory gets more and more complicated. Move by wire 2 or even 3 is soon out of the picture. (Well, the mage on the other hand should get at least 1 point of ware I guess, just to blend in. The "normal" stuff: Sleep regulator, Muscle augmentation and Toner for vanity and maybe some "Brain" augmentation and a Datajack for style. But after the rules those are not "bad" investments anyway...)

You will soon realize that know it will turn as most people claim.
The mage will still walk in unhindered (and Astral Perception is, given the rules, not really a threat if you are already masking foci...)


@Ascalaphus

First of all I think empathy software can't be threaded. Second this are problems with certain iteams in the book, which do not really do what they should. (The flat dicepoolbonus on empathy software is just a bad jocke. And no, it is not better than emotoys. It is the same shit, just without fur.)

(Yes, this also exists in the magic sector. Like the great form ally spirit...)


No combat is not the major Problem. Exept for possession-mages it is not really a problem at all.
The problem emerges as soon as the mage starts acting smart. This means: EVADING combat. Getting to the objective without even encountering/alerting opposition. And mages can do that very, very good.
(Influence, Shapechange, Invisibility (depending on how you read it...), Concealment and maybe a Stunbolt and Heal.)
Yes, as a GM you can make an opposition which will spot and engage the mage. BUT consider what such an opposition will do to the rest of the team... (turning into a bird and flying away is the hell of an escape plot if you do not have astral active mages in persue.)

Irion

Surely if your wared up to the eyeballs you have licences and a good excuse for each one right?

I have a player in my game whos got wired one and a licence for it plus medical notes as he was unfortunate to have been exposed to a nerve toxin when he was a child. Terrible situation but lucky for him he was able to get some ware to compensate very lucky its true but role play is more important then roll play.

Its not bone lacing officer I had a car crash,
Yes officer I had some work done on my muscles I really wanted in on my local combat biking team but just not made the cut yet
Cyberlimb, yea it is and I'm abit sensitive about it so lay off, if you had some novacoked up joyride run you down you wouldnt want to talk about it either.


If your very wired up how about a cover identity as a bodyguard or a ex pro sports star with a good lie or two about why your so buff. Why always hide things when a good story covers you.


As for the mage you mean a mage who's already at least two initiations in so he can have extended masking skills right? This would have cost them nearly 30 karma (without GM kindness for groups and such) that the street sam could have used to get a couple of levels in con to help his cover story or better yet used them to make his character better in a number of ways rather then the mage who has basically spent all that karma on just being able to hide what he is abit better.

So I'm trying to summarize the results of this discussion so far. Sorry if I misrepresented your position or screwed up a name.

Main Complaints against mages:
Mages are easier to build.
Mages are more versatile and steal other people's thunder.
Multicasting and combat spells, specifically stunball.
Influence and controlling magic.
Unlimited growth.
Cannot have their toys taken away.
Spirits.

Main Counters to Mages:
Have spirits roll edge.
Apply modifiers to mages as well.
Background count.
Wards.
Intelligent opposition that would respond to mages.
Technology to counter their powers.

Are mages more powerful than mundanes in your game?
Yes- 16
No- 12
Maybe, or unclear- 11
Other- 1


Paul No
Loch Yes GM probably applying rules wrong
Irion Yes Not clear if it's actually a problem in play or if he just hates the rules.
Summerstorm Maybe
Stahlsteele Yes
Snowraven Yes But not game breaking.
Socinus Maybe
Daylen Maybe
3278 No Actually sees them as weak.
bibliophile20 Yes Frustrating when others play them
CanRay Yes Spirits seem to be the main reason
7.62 Yes
UmaroVI Other Easier to build, but optimized characters tend to be close, except in the long run.
Cheops Yes
Yerameyahu Yes Though he did not explicitly say this.
Christian Lafay Maybe
Darquewing Maybe
NiL_FisK_Urd Yes
toturi Yes Mages have a wider range but other characters have their own niches.
KCKitsune No With house rules.
Glyph No Only broken at the edges
Falconer No Just apply the rules correctly and have intelligent opposition.
Relecs Yes Particularly control spells
Ascalaphus Yes Can be fixed with houserules
pbangarth No Overpowered when the GM does not apply the limitations as written.
unsound Yes Influence from spirits is a problem.
Warlordtheft Maybe If the GM does not plan for magic, that's a problem, but not actually game breaking.
Modular Man No
Midas No Some house rules
thorya No
Shortstraw Maybe
Daddy's Little Ninja Maybe Depends upon the type of game.
squee_nabob Yes House rules help
Tymeaus Jalynsfein No
nightslasthero No
LurkerOutThere Yes Mages can use toys, mundanes can have toys taken away.
Hamsnibit Maybe
Shinobi Killfist No
Machiavelli No Not all the modifiers are applied, because people know meat world better.
Lansdren No