I was thinking the exact same thing...

It's not normally something I share with the players, usually it happens behind the scenes. But I kind of like having it available for them to look at. Heh.

Back on topic: A lot of what is described here is hard for me to quantifiably comment on one way or another because so much of it seems like play style differences. Whether it's enforcing too many of the rules pertaining to firearms combat (Perhaps the part of the system everyone is readily familiar with) and not enforcing enough of the other rules (Which often people find cumbersome and aren't as familiar with); or whether it's simply game balance issues-letting one player become a ball hog is a game balance issue for the GM, who is supposed to be helping facilitate everyone's fun-it all becomes kind of variations of play, where there is no clear cut right or wrong.

There are some interesting, and I think legitimate issues brought up here that I would like to address in no particular order:

• Identifying the Mage: In the heat of the moment obviously this can be difficult. However outside of combat it shouldn't be too hard. Magical assets are valuable resources, and depending on how rare magic is in your game a Mage could pretty readily expect a lot more leeway and creature comforts than the average member of a security team. This can be reflected in their lifestyle; additional rank and a more flexible chain of command. In short making the opposition three dimensional can alleviate some of this. (Please, nobody take this as an accusation of wrong doing, rather please accept this as my personal opinions.)
• Identifying a Mage in combat who is overcasting shouldn't be impossible. In SR4A a player can attempt to notice magic, and that perception test is easier the more powerful the magic becomes. In my own games if someone has had frequent contact with a particular type of magic I use hat experience to knock down the threshhold of recognizing the spell/type of magic in question. After all how many times would you get knocked out by a stunbolt before you decided to start trying to figure out a way to recognize when one is coming your way, and how to better defend yourself.
• Not sending a player character on a job they clearly can't handle or that they are clearly too powerful for: If the players optimize too much they'll stop being affordable, or approachable. People don't just walk up to Micheal Jordan and ask for a pick up game of ball. They have to go through his agent, etc...Plus people like Micheal Jordan have to be careful of their success, because with it comes all sorts of dangers. Players who win too much start attracting the kind of attention they don't want: law enforcement; organized crime; groupies, rivals; thrill seekers; people who want to build a rep by killing them or beating them. It's all there folks. if the Mage gets a case of big britches, wear his ass out.
• Bound spirits/Summoning: I have yet to really run into too much problems here-but eventually some of the solutions I'd envision: more games where the opposition had magical support that was specifically orientated towards dealing with this; as their reputation builds as a summoner harassment by forces opposed to summoners and binding spirits start dicking with them, as well as free spirits start disliking them. Obviously it gets to be a case by case basis.
• Sustained Invisibility: There are limits to this right? So what are the exploits folks?

At any rate compared to my experiences in 3E so far 4E seems pretty intent on limiting spell casting, while exhibiting some weakness with summoning.

Radar Sensor/UBW-Radar or Ultrasound

Seconded.

If mages are so great and powerful, why does anyone play the other archetypes? Just have all mage groups.

Some people do that, but you're assuming the point is to be powerful.

While a mage character has a wider range of abilities than mundanes and can be capable of relatively larger DPs compared to what resistance may be mustered against them, there are niche areas where the other character types can shine.


That would depend on whether Micheal is playing in the NBA. If Micheal never turned pro but instead only played ball in some small amateur league, even if he is as skilled as NBA Jordan, small league Jordan isn't going to attract the kind of attention he does. Some characters, while very successful, may refuse to move out of their comfort zone, still take small jobs and have a low profile. While he may well be successful in every job, he isn't a big success.

There is one way to limit mages... limit their ability to Initiate to their Essence score. For example, my combat medic mage who has an Essence of 4.01 can only Initiate 4 ranks. This would limit the "I'm a Mage and therefore I can advance forever!"

Also other senses - invisibility only works on sight. And remember that technology and magic are both able to enhance such senses. Invisibility doesn't let you bypass physical obstacles - monofilament tripwires will still cut you, and even if you can get though that secure door, people will be suspicious if it opens itself. I think part of the problem is that a lot of people seem to run it as a "somebody else's problem" field, and don't realize that the actual spell itself is far more limited.


That's where I would hit mages, too - in the area of unlimited advancement that doesn't jive with how the rest of the game world works. Also make overcasting have more Drain, limit multicasting by having them split the dice pool after modifiers like power foci, and limit high Force spirits. The trouble with things like background count or higher Drain for direct combat spells is that it hits mages in their everyday functionality. I would prefer to keep background count relatively rare, leave mages with some low-Drain combat spells they can use, and focus any "fixes" on the actual potential problem areas.

@KCKitsune

I would limit the magic points you may have to essence x 2.
4 Initiations are a bit a though call, since two are in general given. So you may take up to 4 others....
Limit the magic and you may have up to 12 initiations, but still only 12 magic. (With 4 points of essence it would be 8 Initations and 8 Points of magic)
(Well, the essence of free spirits should stop beeing raised with force)

(And this unlimited advancement only becomes a problem, due to the essence loss rule. If a mage with 2 Points of essence would need to pay 30 Karma for his second point of magic, it would be over. The "pure mage" outperforming the rest is not very common, unless you have rulings like "Advanced masking may hide your quickend spells from wards".)


In General what are possible problems with magic:
1. Easy to hide. It is very hard to tell if somebody is a mage. If this somebody has masking it is quite impossible to see it. (Only intuition+ ascenning to fight magic+intuition+grade)
2. Separation of the planes is too thin. You may be on the astral and drop spirits on the heads of your opposition. Not a lot they can do about it.
3. Summoning is much too fast. Getting summoned or bound spirits to be at your side takes too less time.
4. A lot of muddy water, meaning that in a lot of cases you can't know how things should be done.
Some examples: If I got implants, do they provide boni if I go to the astral plane (boosts to willpower, Synaptic booster etc. pp) (RAW they would, because everything is working until it is said to be not working anymore). Same question and same answer can be given for physical spells. But is it really clear? Or does the mali for healingspells (on character with essence loss) is true for any healing spell or just for heal? Do healing modifiers apply to healing magic? How does realising magic really works? Do I have to see the guy casting the spell? The target? Nothing?
(But thats not only true for magic. There are a lot of thing in SR where you do not know what exactly they are doing. Radar for example. What can you see with it, what can't you?)
This leads to the fact, that how awakend characters do is very depended of the GM. Read it one way, and mages rule, read it the other way and they fail.
5. Some spells and some FAQ interpretations of them, are quite over the top. "Shapechange: human"

@Irion: Maybe we're talking about the same thing, but the example I gave would have my Combat Medic mage getting up to MAXIMUM Magic of 8. He would only be able to get 4 Ranks of Initiation, plus the max magic of 4 before Initiation.

@Everyone else: With my idea, I would also expand it so that say for example my Mage lost another point of Essence due to 'Ware, and had his 4 ranks of Initiation, then he would lose the most recently gained Initiation. He would go from a Magic of 8 to a Magic of 6. Harsh, but it would limit mages and make them much more playable.

Now, to balance it out, I would make it that Essence lost due to Essence Drain and loss of Magic can be regained. If you get Cyber... your screwed.

Aspected areas, mana warps, and other wonderful things.

That Corporate Office you're infiltrating? Yeah, it's a Tech Support Call Centre. Kiss your Magic Good-Bye. But, hey, the Street Sami's Ingram doesn't seem to be affected!

CanRay... that's limiting Magic too much. Just limit how much a Mage can grow. That will limit the mage more than GM fiat.

If you limit magic so much that it's not usable then you should play Cyberpunk 2020 and not Shadowrun.

@KCKitsune

Well, the point is, that 2 Initations are actually quite a must have as a runner. (Masking, extended masking)
Furthermore shielding is the only way to raise your pool for antimagic.
(Well I do not know if you play with the rule of just buying a technique for karma?)

But you are right, the more I think about it, the more I tend to like it. It closes a lot of doors to the kindom of cheese...

Yup, my idea would close a lot of those doors, but then think about this. If you get 2 points of 'Ware and can now only get four ranks of initiation, which ones do you go for? The mage who takes no 'Ware can get six, but he's kinda squishy in the beginning.

My combat medic mage is, I think, quite capable of going into space, not use any magic and STILL be useful. He's got first aid skills, some gun skills, and if I get to play, he will eventually get some hacking skills. He also has a Synaptic Booster (level 1 right now).

@KCKitsune
Well, four Points of Essence are with this ruling a line you should not cross.

With 4 Points you might get magic 8 (more is too expensive anyway) and 4 Initations. Having an intuition of 4 you can mask your aura with 16 dice. Thats ok...
With 3 Points you are down to 13 dice.
(The guy trying to pirce your disguise has skill+Attribute (intuition). Thats up to 16 dice, but should be around 7 to 10. But the situational modifiers are on his side...)

Some techniques only get interesting with some initiation grades.
Shielding, Centering etc. pp.


The question is, if you allow getting an additional technique for 10(or was it 15?) Karma.
I do not think it woul be to bad. Most of the techniques in the book are not quite usefull with a rank of only 2 or 3. (It is like, of course you may buy shilding and centering. No problem. Oh, you should be aware, that this gives you only 2 additional dice....)

Did I say all the time?

No.

But it reminds the magician that he has limits that don't hit other people. It's showed up twice in my games, and both times the magician was quite freaked out. He was scared of an Orphanage! (Of course, Spirit!Jesus beat people hella-good in there.).

Quite frankly, I haven't seen it. Generally I'm the groups reluctant mage going back to the ancient early edition SR days. (known as I pick character last and fill in what's missing...; so if no mage... I end up picking up the slack).

Yes I like SR4 because a lot of the blatant abuse present in prior editions has been slowly but inexorably stamped out. (grounding out, astral barriers stopping all living entities, TN's to resist things, etc.).

In SR4, mundanes and mages have a pretty good power curve between them. Just to be a mage in this system you're looking at about 135+ BP worth of skills, qualities, magic rating... and that's not even including spells yet. (40BP magic, 80BP skills, 15BP magician....). You no longer have problems like a mage with a combat pool he can solely devote to defense (while street sams others needed to split that single pool between offense and defense), and a magic pool to offense.

The game as a whole is a bit less deadly than prior editions.


Like others have stated, the problems come if you don't use the tools in the setting. When faced with magical opposition guards should be retreating and doing things like throwing smoke to obscure sight (so they can't be targetted). Other people forget that resistance rolls are wil + cover... and shoot it out ok corral style with no modifiers. Yet the mainbook makes it clear this is the wrong way to do it. Even mooks know to take cover.. obscure LOS, etc... to buy time and not get shot/mana bolted down easily.

One of the biggest offenders is letting the mages play their spirits themselves... Also being overly generous with services. Making them burn through them.


I also agree that summoning on the fly is a bit too fast. Changing it to an extended test equal to twice the force of the spirit would probably work better for the initial summoning. (calling an already summoned spirit is fine... just the ability to pull the right spirit out of your ass in no time flat tends to be a bit OP).

I strongly disagree with the arbitrary limiting of magic... especially with a lot of the magical threats out there... we have published dragons with magical scores in the 30's and IIRC even one in the 40's dating back to earthdawn. I know they're dragons... bleah bleah. Or other things like vampires (magic tied to essence + initiate grade...). I believe the much bigger problem is the fact that skill accounts for so little compared to attributes. I think the game would work better if it was retweaked to make skill more important, and so an 12 agi elf defaulting on an agility test wasn't better than say a trained gun instructor with 5 ranks in the skill and 5 agility.

A part of me also thinks things might work better if the magical skill itself was a bit more broken up. Enforce more specialization... if all skills were uncapped... then have say an individual skills for each type of magic. It wouldn't work as well with the way the system is now... but if you could have a gunbunny with 10 ranks in a skill and attributes only counted half...

@Falconer

Thats quite a good idea.
Spellcasting combat spells would not be more restrictive than "automatics".

The Problem is, that the amount of skill would explode. (Because of course you would need to apply that to spirits two.
(It begs the question, if you should apply it to counterspelling and bannishing, too)

But it would but an and to the mage just jerrypicking spells all over the place. (But I would include ritual spellcasting in the normal "spellcasting")

So you would have following skills:

Former Spellcasting group
1.Combat magic
2.Manipulation
3.Illusion
4.Healing
5.Clearsight

6.Counterspelling
7.Antimagic(used to break existing spells)

Former Summoning group
(Lets take the hermetic mage as an example)
1. Fire
2. Earth
3. Water
4. Man
5. Beast
6. Air

7.Bannishing

I would reduce the costs of spells however to 2BP/4 Karma.
This would prevent the healing mage just picking up stunbolt and doing more damage than the sam.

Just my two here but one of the solutions I see popping up quite often is

"geek the mage first"

or

"tons of wards!"

I guess the problem I see with this is while it might be realistic, is it fun?

While playing as a mage I think I might get either frustrated if my gm is constantly trying to kill me (and no one else) or bored if he keeps nerfing my character at every turn (he isn't shutting down the sammies cyber every mission)

As a gm I think about how I would experience these decisions as a player and I would feel guilty for doing this.

That said

there is one caveat, control spells.

While I have seen games dominated by mages in various ways the one group of spells which never brings about a funner result are the control spells (mind control, control actions, etc.) I have found (and this is in answer to Paul's original question) that these spells almost always conquer problems without much fun for the rest of the group.

need someone assasinated? no problem (control, suicide)
need a temporary ally? no problem (control, shoots his buddy)

and these are just the most basic uses of these spells, the range which I have seen is extensive I just can't remeber because for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to post this at 3:30 am

anyways what I'm saying overall is...

I don't know, maybe you can figure it out, like i said...

just my two

-Relecs

And that there is one of the reasons why magic is so damn overpowered . .
Because as soon as ANY of those show up more than seldom, it's all:"waah! GM Fiat! GM out for me! waaah!"
On the other side, Scanners for weapons and cyber are on every door, gateway and so on of a guarded facility.
And there are portable versions too. And Weapons of mundanes can be taken away quite easy too.
While taking away a mages toys is pretty hard. If you take the arsenal from a street samurai or the drones of a rigger, they are, basically, permanently nerfed untill they can re-aquire some of their toys.
Which, for them, is HARDER, because they NEED MONEY TO MAKE MONEY . .
Only comparsion i have for this is hitting mages with essence-suckers every now and then to cause them one or two points of permanent magic loss . .
But of course, those are still even MORE dangerous to the cybered, because the cybered and bioed risk simply falling over dead from essence less, while the mage only loses a bit of power.
And of course, again, the whining of the mage about permanent magic loss being GM fiat and something he can't do to the other so of course he is singled out again . .

Well, essence suckers are really GM fiat, mostly because of how the rules work. If regnerating essence would regenerate magic, it would not be a problem.

SR3 had rules for magic loss from heavy trauma/wounds.

Essence drain isn't really comparable with taking away an augmented character's guns or drones - it is more akin to ripping out that character's cyberware. Also, mages can have their toys too, foci and fetishes. If they lose one, they lose the karma they have invested in it as well, and if they lose the other, they are unable to cast their fetish-limited spells until they replace it.

I hear this refrain of "You don't use background count", but that should be a comparatively rare (and special) occurrence, not something that's everywhere. Magic should not be overpowered some of the time, and nerfed at other times. That's just frustrating, to have your character's abilities randomly fluctuate like that. Mages should be balanced all of the time, consistently.

if you read the description of background count, MOST STREETS have BGC of1, Most HOUSES have one of 2 and most SUBWAYS AND BUSSES and other public transport has one of 3 . . Concert halls and stadiums get 4 . .

Yeah. You either have to go by that, or just change it altogether. If mages did expect BGC 1 basically all the time, it wouldn't seem so 'frustrating'. Or, take it out of the game and balance them without it, yes. Gotta pick one.

No Stahl, 0 through 1 can be relatively common, 2 uncommon. Anything higher than that is generally rare or special location.


A lot of people don't realize some of the biggest graces of BGC's... they hammer mages who are reliant on foci more than one who's just straight casting. Take the common example of a force 2 power focus in a +1 BGC. The mage suffers a -1 magic, -1 power focus, and -1 visibility (if assensing), for a big -3 for each point of positive BGC. Positive BGC's can also be aspected... meaning that you can throw a weaker opposing mage at the group without too much hassle (+1 magic rolls, +1 drain dice to the opposition on their home turf).

On the other side. In a void, -1, it's still -1 magic, -1 focus (useful for those people overreliant on sustaining foci, remember the force of an increase attribute must be at least equal to the base attribute for example). Though the astral visibility improves to +1. For a net of -1 dice on tests... but with -1 magic/focus on everything.

But to recap the above... depending on what kind of vision someone is using. Each point of positive BGC resolves into 2-3 points of dice penalties to above mage. Each point of negative BGC, 1-2.

BC 1 is realy close to everywhere if you are not in a natural environment.
BC 2 needs crowded places.
BC 3+ is only found in special places.

How do you get to those numbers?
In the description of background count it more or less details what gives what kind of BGC.
I think Auschwitz actually has a BGC of 6 or so . .

The Domain examples on SM p121 give a good sense of scope and scale, I think:

• Rating one "include[s] the scene of a violent crime or passionate love affair, a bar frequented regularly by the Awakened, or a rural church that is important to its small town residents." There would be hundreds or thousands of such places in a city. [I think you could certainly make the argument that most office parks and factories would have a similar background count.]

• Rating 2 "domains are generated by the emotional impact of a great number of people or by a steady emotional, spiritual or magical influence over a long period of time." Specific examples include major concert venues after particularly intense shows, maximum security prisons, or magical workshops. There would be dozens or hundreds of such places in a city the size of Seattle.

• Rating 3 is recent battlefields, cathedrals, disaster areas, that sort of thing: that's rare, although in Shadowrun you can still find tens of such places in big cities.

Auschwitz is a domain rating 6, correct.

I think there's a bit of a disconnect between BGC as described in SM, and the way the rules for it were set up. The fluff description suggests they'd be everywhere, but that contrasts the core book which doesn't appear to assume so.

Normal circumstances should be the baseline to measure from; if BGC 1 was standard, then you should just rewrite all spells to be +1 Drain, give the Magician Quality a starting Magic of 1, and say that BGC 1 is the new BGC 0.

---

Positive/Aspected BGC is an interesting flavorful technique, but it would work better if it was a little more detailed; an emotionally charged Happy Place could provide boni to Orgasm spells while penalizing Agony spells, for example.

This could be used by a clever GM: it would force the mages to rely on a diverse array of spells, because they don't work equally well in all circumstances. That reduces some of the "I don't need to carry a heavy toolkit" thing mages have vs. mundanes - they need to consider magical terrain much more heavily during legwork.

Well, two gives as an example the concert of a famous rockstar. Thats a lot of people and a lot of emotions. (Or max security prison. This means that lower security prisons do not even get BC 2!)
For one the emotion of two people are enought. (Crime, Sex)

For BC 3 you need a major battle in the last hundred years... Thats not that easy. There are only a few destinct places offering that.
And BC 4 is even harder to get. Yes, you could lowball it and give any side which sees some historic reenactment BC4, but I do not think this is how it should be read. Because this would make BC 4 much more widespread than BC 3.

That's because background count doesn't appear in the core book. It's only an add-on rule, in Street Magic, like any other add-on rule.

It's pretty clear: Rating 4 is basically Rating 3 + continuing emotion. You need a Rating 3 site, which then experiences things like reenactments [although reenactments aren't necessarily the kind of emotional events they're talking about]. And of course Rating 4 could always just be - although they don't say anything like that - just the site of a really bad Rating 3 battle or whatever, too: it's just the number that comes after 3, after all.

I disagree with that. A Baseline does not have to be the most common situation. It has to be the situations where there is no modification.

It is like saying most runs take place at night, so there should be no visual modifiert for "darkness" you should instead get a bonus if you are operating in sunlight.

This works, untill you consider things like thermographic vision etc. pp.

Same thing with the BC. Now you are in a forest, and the BC would be 0....

I think I know why our experiences vary so strongly from those of the other people in this thread: power level. We don't have any mages really much beyond starting level. If you look at people's experiences, most of the problems begin at higher power levels, or are badly exacerbated by higher power levels. With one notable exception, we haven't had a game where people are anywhere near hard-capping anything: most of our SR4 games have just been too street-level for these issues to arise. I think that's a lot of it. Also, the worst min-maxer at the table - me - hasn't taken a run at it yet.


That's a play style thing too, come to think of it: we don't care about power differential. When you think about it, Daniel could have killed Joseph a hundred times before breakfast, but I'm not sure anyone ever noticed or cared. Atem's about to play the shaman, and if he's less useful than other characters, I don't think anyone will deeply mind, because effectiveness isn't [for him] a particularly significant aspect of his enjoyment. So I think that might be some of why we don't run into this problem at the table, even if it exists in the rules. Plus...we've never really played by the rules, anyway.

"The play's the thing!" - Shakespeare.

And that hasn't changed.

Depending on the view of major battles, most big cites of Eastern Europe, France, Italy and Germany should be Rtg 3 BG-Counts (esp. Berlin, Monte Cassino, Stalingrad, Kursk, Warsaw etc.) - if WW2 still counts.

@NiL_FisK_Urd
Lucky for us, they told us, that it needed to be in the last 100 years... If it would not be like that, yes BC 3 everywhere in Europe.

I like the word usually XD. Also, Omaha Beach would be a Rtg. 4 domain (imho there is a ceremony each year on D-Day). Are there any informations on the Euro-Wars, esp. where big battles happened?

I would like to praise all who have contributed so far. This is far and away the most civil discussion of this topic I have seen on DS.

I am firmly settled in the camp that believes mages are overpowered when the GM doesn't use all the naturally existing environmental limitations on magic. When the GM does fairly apply those limitations, the mage is just on specialist among many.

For example, some argue that things like often-present wards and backgrounds are over-compensations for a power differential built into the system, but think a moment. Everybody wears amour. How come that is not seen as overcompensation for heavily armed street sams? All matrix nodes have IC. Same question for hackers. All buildings have technical alarm systems... etc., etc. People know of the dangers and compensate accordingly. Cheap, long-lasting counters to magic in the form of wards are a cost-effective, well-known protection. Anybody with money and something to protect will have them set up as a matter of course.

As far as background count goes, the game is set in a dystopian future in which nature has been raped six ways from Sunday. Magic is inextricably linked to a healthy connection to the natural forces of Gaia. There is just no way that a cityscape should not affect magic. Hell, I am no magician (Oh! You didn't realize that?) but I can walk down the streets of my own city and feel the differences in the neighbourhoods. Whether this is a mystical manifestation of a communal character or my own fabrication built from my perceptions, it doesn't matter. It is a real effect that colours the way I interact with the environment. SR opts for the former interpretation, and so BGC affects foci, spells and spirits as well. Reliance on and use of mana as manifest in the Gaiasphere is a fundamental principle of magic in SR. Face it. Cities for the most part fuck with that manifestation. Any islands of clear mana would be sought out by mages just like we today love a breath of fresh air after walking past the filtration plant.

That all seems fair to me.

pb, I think that's because under the current system. Everything boils down to magic strength. Quite frankly, I haven't noticed the mages outdamaging the street sams or riggers. The only problem I've come up with is spirits... they're done very poorly and they too quickly go from minor annoyance to overpowering with too small of a 'just right' goldilocks zone. The vast majority of problems I've run into have been due to them.

Once you have some magical strength, it's 5 karma and some dosh to add new tricks to the bag. But it takes a LOT of karma to get that strength. Especially for the initiations you need to operate... like others say... for your typical shadowrun mage... masking and extended masking are pretty much mandatory. There's 29 karma right there... after that you're looking at a good deal more to add other abilities as necessary.

Then you run into other issues. As a mage you need both perception AND assensing (trained only). Also, you need astral combat (again TRAINED ONLY) otherwise you're meat to any spirit which cares to pound you flat in astral. Toss on then no melee skill, or a gun skill maybe... these points start getting hard to come by. Remember you have your attributes. Then you have a SPECIAL attribute magic which effectively takes points out of your skill BP. So then you start wondering how you're going to get enough points for edge... etc. Plus on top of that you're looking at 3BP per starting spell.

I see a lot of builds which skimp on these... and I find it sad that GM's don't penalize mages for not having those trained only skills.

It's also part of the whole problem in the BP chargen system which penalizes you for not min/maxing in chargen with 'penalty' karma later in play for making a well rounded character out the gates.

The other problem I have with all these arguments is I always see the argument made.. "well spell X" does this... then the question becomes does Mage A, know X, Y, Z, etc. So while there is often a spell to do this or that the bigger problem is that mages don't know the entire grimoire and need to carefully pick and choose unless they're blowing 100 karma on 20 spells for everything and the kitchen sink.

I've rarely seen an actual spellcasting mage be a problem in any game. The problem in my experience is pulling out the spirits. Spirits as done are too powerful at low levels comparatively. Lets face it a force 4 over matches most corpsec, force 5 is almost a gimme, 6 is the sweet spot with the 2 optional powers. You run into the whole problem of characters/NPC's with capped skills running into fantastical things like dragons/spirits etc... which are uncapped. Yeah a force 10 with 10 attribute AND 10 ranks in skill?!. Then you look at all these broken spirit powers like concealment... (I'm STRONGLY against mechanics which penalize others dice pools... as it's too easy to wipe out non-twinked perception pools, that power would have been perfectly find just adding +force dice to actual stealth rolls). Also by strict RAW counterspelling doesn't work against spirit powers like elemental attack when it would against a firebolt.

Seriously, why would I ever choose to learn firebolt as a mage... if I can instantly summon up a spirit on demand for less drain, then have it pop it off every round or just tell it... burn that drone into the ground.

I've toyed with toning down spirits by only giving them half-force ranks in skill. I suggest others try it out and see how it works for them. Also I suggesting experimenting with using banishing as equivalent to counterspelling against spirit powers.

Also, I highly recommend checking out "The Bartimeus Trilogy" it's given me MANY good ideas for spirits. A lot of the work is written from the perspective of a spirit constantly being summoned and bent to his master's will.

Apologies for the disjointed writing... a little too busy to clean it up.

Agreed. Mages should be grateful that, in the eternal race between warhead and armor, the armor against them is much harder to come by, but by no means is it impossible to acquire.

EDIT:


Been running it with that in my game at the moment; been working out great.

Protip: Astral Combat is definitely not necessary for mages. You want to win astral fights? Stunbolt. That's it. Also, the reason you need to be afraid of Astral spirits when you are Astral or dual-natured? It's not their F/2 melee, it's Fear. And them stunbolting you, if they are Man spirits.

I do agree with you that many of the problems people run into with mages come from spirits - largely because it's very easy to make a mage who can consistently summon f6 spirit, and comparatively harder to make a street samurai who can stand up to a f6 spirit in a fight.

Strongly disagree... a spirit or worse wage mage (w/ weapon focus) can go from long range to the mage in the blink of an eye at astral speeds... especially in a building where you have things just flying through walls and your range advantage from stunbolt is negated. This is exactly what I mean by people NOT knowing or understanding the implications of the rules and then crying about mages. They then don't disabuse mages of their power gaming notions when they neglect their own defensive skills! After that they turn around and complain.

A lot of those spirits also have magical guard which now makes that spell not as reliable as you might like.

The point being... is that since you can't roll defense to avoid the attack... you will end up soaking 5-7 damage typically (stun or physical... stun generally nastier since it can't be magically healed). All it takes is one, and your mage is running around with 6 stun, and a -2 wound penalty on all his actions in one good attack.

Though the power most hated by my GM isn't fear... it's confusion... the prospect of his big baddy suddenly losing a pile of dice on all it's actions really annoys him. Astral fear... yeah it runs away... then comes back later at it's leisure and pummels you.

Except ALL spirits have Astral Combat. So they're rolling either F or Fx2 against stunbolt, and always rolling Fx2 against astral attacks.

5-7 damage is a lot less dangerous than 11+ from an overcasted stunbolt.

Confusion is a terrible power fyi. If you can confuse someone, you should really just fear them. If they are Confused, and in a situation where Fear would have been less harmful to them... they can just run away! Basic rule of tactics - never give your opponent a choice, always make it for them. Not to mention, the "whole pile of dice" is going to be, like, 3, maybe, if you have a force 6 spirit Confusing a guy with 3 Willpower. Whee.

Maybe you don't want them to run away. Either for info, control, hostage, or just don't want a screaming guard running through the corridors.

What about Influence? Now that's one beastly power. Why make them run away or lower their dice pools when you can just make them shoot themselves in the face? It's 10x better than the mage version because it can't be counterspelled and it's instant.

See this is exactly what I mean by people not understanding the full import of the rules, then allowing mages to get away with powergaming by not exploiting self-imposed weaknesses.

I wasn't advocating it as a means of attack but as something necessary to defend against (which is often ignored). I agree you're a magicians primary armaments ARE his spells. However, other threats don't have to hold to this! The ONLY advantage to range on the astral is being able to pelt things with spells from out of their reach. But you STILL need to be able to see them, and at astral speeds any combat in pretty much any enclosed building space is melee range to other astral forms since you can't see through the walls while things can move freely through them.

Here's another nugget maybe you missed... the part under astral combat where it "Astral combat is resolved in the same way as physical combat". Hmm I'm going to called shot for damage that astral unarmed strike... quote "... so unarmed attacks, active weapon foci, and mana spells are the only options for astral combat." Now suddenly that 5-7 is more like 9-11 resisted with only willpower to soak it (I sense an edge being spent). You want to run away... I use an intercept action to get a free attack and stop you from moving. Also nasty, allies in combat... yeah there's 4 watchers with him who proceed to surround you... +4 to his attack pool!

And lets not forget other niceties... you don't seem to realize how broken some of the spirit powers are in this context... to bring up one I brought up before. Okay the spirit is concealing itself... visibility penalties are counted against ranged attacks including spells. Oh dear... now something like a guardian spirit with magical guard is rolling 2x it's force to resist and penalizing your die pool. Lets not forget astral visibility penalties... especially if we have say a 1 point BGC aspected against you and in favor of the security detail. Fortunately natural weapon is a physical power which doesn't come out until it materializes.....


As far as confusion goes... you obviously haven't been nailed enough by tactics like this to understand why fear DOESN"T work beyond, make it go away for a short time. We had to bitch slap the cleric in the game which causes cancer many times before he'd STOP turning incorporeal undead... because they'd simply run away through the floors/walls/etc... then they would proceed to attack again at the worst possible moments... (normally in the middle of another fight!). As opposed to them standing and fighting til we killed a few at least...

The nicety of confusion is it's a great way to have some fun. Not only do you do something useful. Like wipe out a quarter of the guys dice typically... you also allow your other friends to shine. Suddenly the pistol adepts shots are that much more effective, instead of hogging the spotlight you've shown it on someone else. Generally it renders things ineffective at combat, but unable to do much about it. Or how about, you catch a lackey and need to know which lab that project you're supposed to steal got moved too... here slap him up a little... confuse him then quickly interrogate him.

Influence, yeah that's also on my broken list. There's a spell of the same name which does the same thing. Our GM's have treated the power identically to the spell. By RAW the power is Instant, but the power isn't.. it's permanent meaning it takes multiple combat turns to sustain before the suggestion takes root and becomes permanent. (brownie points are awarded for doing it subtly... like 'influencing' the weapons smuggler to give us a discount so we'll come back with repeat business). So far, the best use of it we've done with it to date... we seeded a humanis rally with some garbage cans full of surplus AK-97's we'd acquired... some magic hands to knock em over, and then some influence peddling from a spirit of man on remote service and we had one hell of a diversion.