Trolling is only fun for the person doing it, and SnowRaven wasted a lot of time and effort analyzing rules throughout the editions on your sorry behalf. Your immature "Oh, you guys didn't realize I was trolling, I'm so clever." comment was pitiful, and your subsequent attempts to justify your behavior beggar belief. It's gonna take quite a while for folks around here to take you seriously again, I'm afraid.

Why? That just means that one character went a different route to the same ending point. That happens all the time, in every archtype, dependant upon background and player preference.

I don't understand your point, Irion. It's just how the SR4 cyber/essence system is set up, not a question of 'broken'. If you'd like to get rid of the essence hole rule, you can do so, but that's a mere tweak.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
So PunPun of DnD is also not broken. He just took a different rout to raise his attributes? (So he got on level 4 what others get on level 50)

The point is, that the routes are not equally long. There are shotcuts. And some of them are very short.

@Yerameyahu
I just guess we have other definitions of "broken". If I say broken, I mean does lead to strange outcomes or unfair outcomes sometimes. Not that it is unusable.

Can you give more information about your example of building the same adept 750+200 karma and 750+350 karma? And point out what part of the Essence rules that you consider broken in the builds? I'm genuinely curious.

@phlapjack77
It is mostly the fact about magic loss.

If you raise your magic to 10 and then install 4 points of cyber, you will have lost the equivalent of 170 Karma.
If you just hop from 1 to 2, you will have lost 40 Karma.

(If you do the same trick with latent awakening, you even get around the 30 Karma.)

(Add to this some saving karma on the initation and you are good)

All the other things are merly fluff things. (Using cyberlimbs to help a badly injured person to get better and making everything worse in the process and so on)

I would have prefered, that essence determins how much "ware" you may compensate.
So your wareindex can't be higher than your essence. (And this ware-index might limit magic. Lost essence (from drain) only limiting you maximum magic.)

Cool - thanks for the reply.

I disagree with your idea, mostly because it sounds like you're saying there shouldn't be ways to make "suboptimal" (read: different) choices in terms of building and then advancing a character.

I sort of don't like the loss of Essence immediately dropping current Magic either (in addition to max Magic), but I've seen some good arguments about why it's like that, so I go along with it.

I think the crux of the matter here is whether you survive to get that karma or how sure you are of getting the "correct" Awakening.

If you are guaranteed to get all that karma, then yes, installing the wares first is better. But as I see it, the character's starting effectiveness isn't going to be as good as someone who didn't install those wares or is going the augmentation route without being Awakened. Remember some implants take more than 1 Essense. Hopping from 1 to 2 is going to take quite a bit of ware juggling if you want those more than 1 Essense implants. You are going to have to start the game with low Magic and minimal augmentation.

@toturi
You also have only limited ressources to start the game, anyway...

And lets be honest: A first aid skill of 4 (or even the whole group) makes a character as usefull as the 3 dice to hit and the 3 points of armor you might get for war.

And if you use BP and you have to start with the adept.
Do not get cyber right away. Why should you.
Get a high lifestyle, get a ton of connections and get a lot of high skills and attributes. You might have even enough left to go MR.Lucky.
(So at the start of the game you have cash like hell and are set up well)
Thats actually quite good for a face.

Yes, you might not be that good in the dungeon crawl style of runs, but what kind of runs you do depends on the group. If you are focused on roleplaying and connections, a better chance to hit might not be that important.

The ware juggeling has to be done by every character. (Unless you only update, which is not quite that efficient to begin with)

Those two points I would like to address. The first one points a bit (might just be me) in the direction: You do something we do not like, we kill you off. A Technomancer is even worse off in the way of survivability.
The second depends on the group. But if you have a "fair" GM he will give it a roll. 1: Mage 2:mystical adept 3:adept 4:Sprit knacks 5:spell knacks 6: Astral perception.
But still why not take those 5BP(10 Karma) for the roll?
It is a 2/6 Chance to get what you are looking for. 1/6 Chance to get at least access to counterspelling. (sure, you might need to invest some Kama but what the hell)
Whats the worst thing which could happen? You get astral perception? So what?

@phlapjack77

May I ask why?
The point is, I get such anwser quite often on different topics. (In and outside RPGs)
(political debates are one fine example...)
And mostly people get very upset if you use the system they said they are fine with.

I like the Essence rules. I don't like the interaction Essence has with Magic. But I don't think it's really "broken", just not to my liking.

I think rules in a lot of places could be improved. But I don't see the word "broken" applying here. Maybe it's just semantics...but still, I see your definition "does lead to strange outcomes or unfair outcomes sometimes" as still not applying here. Sure, if you focus your intense scrutiny on extreme edge cases, stuff's going to come up a little strange. Your case involves a character with +200 or +350 karma, along with having to deal with Latent Awakening and other randomness. Not something 99% of people ever encounter "sometimes"

@phlapjack77
It depends. If you have latend awakening you can also say 50 Karma to 250 Karma. Thats not really the issue.
The Karma was so high, to make it a natural development. (Of course if you only spend karma on Magic, the total amount will be much smaller)
Going 1/2 five times costs 50 Karma.
Going 2/6 once costs 90 Karma.
Going 3/7 would be 110 Karma.
Using latend awakening would be 10 Karma.

And it is not just the Karma. Thats just adding. This way you get the best of two worlds and only pay reduced price.
For example using Way of the warrior to get 3 IPs for 2 Powerpoints and using alpha muscle toner to get +4 Agility for 0.64 Essence.

Or the other way round: What is the drawback of a latend awakend adept to a sam?
He can take about one point less of ware and has to pay 10 Karma/5 BP for the quality.

The adept who is it from the start is slow to begin (but can take other stuff) and payed 50Karma or 45BP (for 4 Points of ware).

Yes, it won't matter much untill you have around 100 Karma.

I wasn't thinking about better chances to hit. I was thinking more about in general shadowrunning and the inherent risks it carries. I was thinking about survivability and effectiveness in all senses of the words.

Going by the premise of minimising karma spent on magic due to essense loss, the character would be a lightly magically enhanced character at the start. He is not likely to multiple levels of any adept power or able to do things that require a higher Magic rating.

@toturi
But he can spend this karma on other stuff.
Lets say he is just starting with 0.8 Points of ware and 1 point of magic, what is the problem?

A technomancer is starting with 0 Points of ware and 0 Points of magic.

Sure, it is not a good idea if you want to go streat sam. But why not go human face. Spend your Karma for Edge or whatever you would like.

It is often reasoned that the "focused" character has such better chances of survival. Thats true if you MAKE it the case.

To give a simple example of what I mean:
If the characters are in some "Dungeon" (beeing a abandoned military complex or something) and under attack by bug spirits and they need to get out of there, you need every bit of firepower, dodge, Magic you can get your hands on.

But lets take a second look at it: What if the GM adds a bit to the sourroundings. Drones which were heavly damaged in the initial fights could be reactivated if you have the skills to repair them. A guy who is in the medical section is in suspended animation in a tank for some genetic treatment (probably healing some damage), having the right skills you can finish the procedure and he will help you. So you do not have to hack the "all hostile" security system, he just turns it to help you.

There are millions of possibilities like that.

It is the same thing with the logic 1 hacker. If you just have the hacking approach he will never have troubles. But the interface has been damaged. What to do now?
(The guy with logic 4 and hardware just unscrews the pannel, jury rigs the burned circuits and hacks the terminal)

I honestly don't see the problem.

Magic connected to Essence which is limited by Augmentations has been the core principle of shadowrun since the first edition, with augmentation and other essence loss taking away your humanity and reducing your magic ability.

IMO, it's one of the major parts which make shadowrun what it is.


Granted, in 4th edition it's a bit more noticable than before, because now you can get magic ability 'cheaper' (with the drawback of it being more fragile to augmentation). Previously, it was easier to build a Magic 2 cyber-mage - now it'll take more investment at char gen or take more time in advancement. I'd say the only real problem now is for the powergamer who wants a high magic rating and lots of 'ware - it's costly with the current system, and you can do it 'the wrong way around'.

But the same goes for other stuff - initiation ordeal by sacriicing a stat point will hit different characters differently. For some, it will be cheap to replace the stat point and they'll end up with a karmic benefit - for others, it will cost them a lot more than the initiation did to replace the lost stat. I don't see that as 'broken' either.

We are not talking about DND Irion, we are talking about Shadowrun. Get with the program.

I'm just not hearing the problem with the SR4 cyber-eats theme; it's one arbitrary choice, but it's the one SR uses. It has to be one-way, or you haven't lost anything. It sounds like you just don't like the magic loss, essence hole, chargen 'sequence cheating', and Latent X rules. Those are all separate things.

@Yerameyahu
Well, I see those points a bit more connected. But anyway.

I dislike the mechanic off loss=loss but costs are independent from lost essence.

I see why they choose that way, to allow burnout.

Cheez I just like it, if one rule is true for everything.
I do not like how it makes essence loss so extreamly deadly for sams and expensive for mages. (So you can't actually use it on them without causing bad blood. Which begs the question why it is actually in the game... And so on)

I do not like it how it is harder to undo the effects of one internal air tank than regrowing your spine.
It just does not feel cyberpunk enough for me.

But yes, it is mostly preferance I guess...

And a fully valid preference for you. If you go reread Tvtropes' entry on 'cyber eats your soul', there's plenty of info on both sides of the decision. I do prefer this way for cyberpunk, as opposed to transhumanism; in Eclipse Phase, it's a little nagging the way everyone is modded to the gills (and, because of the limited options, near-identically). There, it helps to think of augs as 'just gear'.

In SR, though, mods aren't just gear (to me), and they represent major character choices and investments. And I do agree that the complicating factors (essence holes, magic loss, Latent X) can represent specific problems, depending on the game and group. They seem to be much more balance based.

An invisible mage is VISIBLE on the astral plane, he's not necessarily ACTIVE.
(The spell is dual natured, the mage is not)

This is accurate, and exactly what I meant; I made a poor choice of words. Having said that, almost any astrally-present security would be able to harm him, as paracritters are dual-natured, and any astral security mages could target him with mana spells.


Basically, even improved invisibility only works on rubes.

If it's just the spell on an otherwise non-astral target, then no. An astrally projecting mage could attack the spell, but NOT the target.

The target MUST be astrally active in some way for an astral-only being to affect him. A purely astral caster is further restricted to using mana spells.

This is why it specifically sucks to be a non-magician ghoul, you're astrally active as a dual-natured being, but have no way to fight that astral mage levitating 100 feet up who's lobbing spells at you.

Unless perhaps you had a jetpack or something.


-k

I am not sure what you mean and how it pertains to the discussion at hand. One assumption is that a character is part of a team. If everyone is focused in their field, then it is more likely that the team succeeds and thus the character who part of this team has better chances of survival. It does not matter what field it is or what alternate paths the GM provides to reach the goal.

I am not saying that a character like what you have proposed isn't workable. I am saying that across all archetypes and in general, such a character is more likely to be less successful in whichever field as compared to a character who is making fuller use of his Magic/Essense, instead of trying to balance both with respect to karma.

@toturi

It is, like everything questionable. And it depends on how you run your game and to what end the character is build.
To a security mage you will look like some poor idiot who did not figure out he is magically active. To the cyberwarescanner you will (if they even make the roll) look like some with a bit of cyber.

Lets but it like that, I have had completly different impressions with characters who focus on covering all the fields left aside. In Shadowrun and other RPGs. (Once the character (not shadowrun) had to be banned for beeing too strong)

It is always about what angles the GM let you use. For example: You want to steal a new configuration for a cybersuite.
You can go to the main server and fight your way to the data. (Which will be extreamly protected, because there will be even more important data)
Or you can get hired as a doctor and just have the paydate handed to you. (The second requires a (faked)sin and probably the biotechnology skillgroup at 4...)

(The second plan requires a lot of skills, but on a low level. You have to get one of the doctors to leave work. For example in an accident on a sports activity, a hacker has to fake a fitting SIN and so on. But you won't need to fight the difficult battles, you will have to fight more battles.)

It is always about how the GM handles stuff. Yeah, you can just send in a face with an extreamly high dicepool and roll your way through it. But honestly, I do not think that all the dice in the world can provide you a good cover, if you can't complete simple tasks associated with your backgroundstory...

How would what I am stating be questionable? However you approach the situation and assuming the GM is prepared to allow for alternative approaches, I am saying that more dice will improve your odds of success, at least at a particular given task. Furthermore I think that just because the skill test in question changes, it doesn't mean that the difficulty of the test should be much easier.

Take your example. The alternative approach may well require a Disguise check and Etiquette roll that may well be out of the character's capability, even if those skills are within his skillset. Just because the approach is different, doesn't necessarily mean it is any easier. The assumption that second plan requires a lot of skills, but on a low level doesn't ring true to me. The thresholds may be lower but given the premise, unless there are exceptional extenuating circumstances, I do not think the thresholds would be significantly lower (from 5 in the first scenario to 4 in the second) and the greater number of tests at a slightly lower threshold may well make the odds of overall success worse.

@Irion

Starting out of CharGen with Magic 2, buying 1 point of ware then raising magic to 2 in game (and repeat until the character has all the 'ware he wants) before raising Magic to its max may be a more "karma efficient" way to make a Magic 4 mage with 2 points of ware vis a vis the CharGen Magic 6 mage who later gets 2 points of 'ware.

So what? I think torturi's point is that he still has to play the very low-Magic character for quite some game time before he has raised his Magic to its pre-Initiation max; he probably also has to have ploughed any BP/karma he "saved" by this method into non-magic skills to make his character a viable runner out of CharGen.

Also, to raise is Magic to 4 (raising to 2 twice, then to 3 then to 4) is going to cost him a big chunk of karma in-game. The character who started at Magic 6 then dropped to 4 through adding ware will have used a similar amount of in-game karma to initiate twice and raise Magic to 5 or 6, so he will still be ahead of the former on the Magic curve.

As for Latent Awakening for cybered characters, some GMs would require the character to burn sufficient karma to pay off the essence taken by 'ware and buy Magic to 1 in order to awaken. I for one would allow a Latent Awakening character to choose the type of awakening (Adept, Mys Ad, Mage) and pay the difference between the Latent Awakening quality and the awakened type they chose. Please also note that in starting with no related skills (for Mages and Mys Ads anyway), the character would start way behind the curve of the guys who chose to be Awakened from the outset in the first place.

@Midas

Again: You compare them to the "mage"/"adept" in the group and say they would need karma to be magically as good.
The problem is, they have a lot of other stuff. If you have an adept with magic 2 and 4.5 Poitns of cyber he will probably kick the ass of an magic 6 or even 7 adept without cyber.


Really?
Karma Gen:
Methode1:
Cost during Gen: 10Karma
Cost during Game: 10+ 45= 55 Karma
Methode 2:
Cost during Gen: 100
Cost during Game:0

So you exchanged 90 Karma during the Generation for 55 Karma in Game.

But lets not look at extream cases anymore.
Take an adept, way of the warrior with magic 5 from the start. Now we start dropping the magic over time in game and replace it with cyber.
(If we hit the last point we raise it again and dropp it)

How much are we behind the sam?
Generation: 10(adept)+20(way of the warrior)+70(raising magic)=100Karma
In game: 10 Karma.

But here it is important to note, that the sam will also have spend Karma on Cyberware which will probably has been replaced by now. (Even if it is only 50Karma, it is still a lot)
Now the Sam is having a bit higher skill and a bit more Ware (around 1 Point, probably a bit more).
If we just saved enough Karma (35 in Game), we can go back to magic 3. (And take increased Reflexes 3 with geas)
How much Essence will the sam probably waste for his 4 Passes? Or will he try the expensive Bioware?
The point is: For around 110 Karma(And this number can be even dropped) we have created a Sam with benefits. We can now always go the cheaper road. (To raise an skill from 6 to 7 we will pay 0.25 to 0.5 Powerpoints. The sam will need to buy a 20BP quality and pay 14 Karma on top of that. Make it two skills and we are ahead. The essence he is able to spend, we make up with increased Reflexes.

If you are going to compare 'karma' spent on cyberware during chargen, you have to take into account money spent while the game is underway as well.

Karma during karmagen isn't perfectly equal to karma earned in-game unless you let ppl during advancement either spend money to get karma and spend karma to get money, or eliminate monetary payment altogether and force everyone to exchange karma for cash if they want to buy something.

How does your theory work with BP gen? It's the 'standard rule' after all - karmagen is an optional rule.

I see the point you're getting at, Irion. But it seems like you have to do an awful lot of set-up and "what if" scenarios to arrive at what seems like a very theoretical problem. Who has ever actually encountered this?

It doesn't seem like a case of "this doesn't happen at my table". This seems like a case of never happens ever at any table. So why worry?

@snowRaven

If I replace magic with Cyberware or Cyberware with Cyberware does not really matter. In both cases I loose what I bought during generation.


BP makes it a bit better for mages, since they can just buy a powerfocus 4 from the start. (And yes it would cost a bit more... 40BP to 70 Karma.)


Such rules would shift the balance, of course. But they have a real problem in screwing up the Balance between mundane and awakend characters.
If a run just give 50 Karma (or 125k) and you may exchange like during the Generation mages will rule.
(With or without cyber)

Of course you can say one point of Karma is worth 50.000 nuyen, but now the Sam will just use the Karma (maybe 20) from the first run and starts to buy delta.
The problem is at every step of the game, from street to high end the ratio Karma to nuyen is different.

Giving a bunch of streetlevel runners two million nuyen each will be like christmas, easter and birthday for the sam. (He will probably be 3 times as good afterwards)
Giving a bunch of high end runners two million nuyen will let the Sam fit in three delta implant by replacing two alpha once.

On the other hand: Giving the runners 200 Karma will give the mage a hell of a boost in any situation. (Be it with 0 or 400 Karma)

@phlapjack77
What are your refering to?
Get magic to 5 replace it during your runs with cyber. The second you hit magic one you start initiating and rebuying magic. Leaving you with a sam who is also an adept. If you plan ahead your cyber will only be a bit behind the sam. If you use geas and the way of the warrior you can even come out ahead since the SAM needs to get his Passes at higher prices or essence costs.
Why do you think there is and was so much discussions about cyberadepts beeing so strong? (Even mages work best if you put in one to three points of cyber)
THIS IS THE REASON FOR IT. It gives you fixed prices of Karma for each point of ware you use additional to your magic. And this price depends on how much magic you had at this moment.
If you drop magic 8 to 7 the other mage could get a lot for this 40 Points of Karma. One point of cyber won't probably make up for it.
You drop from 4 to 3 you pay 20 Points of Karma for having one point of Ware. Better but still a though price.
If you manage to fit it into the low range it gets better but it also works higher up. It will only take much longer untill you are ahead of your counterpart.

Take them aside and let them know the sorts of issues being caused, especially with regards to severed plot hooks, players hate being told how they are wrecking their own fun, and often adjust to avoid pissing in their own cornflakes.

@Irion

If it's a problem, why not just make the your magic after essence loss an "effective score" and you use your effective score for everything you roll, but use your magic before essence loss to calculate the cost to improve magic score. Similar to how when you raise agility from 3 to 5 with cyber/bio, and then increase your attribute with karma you don't pay the price to increase it from 5 to 6, you pay the price to increase it from 3 to 4.

So if you have 3 points of magic and put in two points of cyber, then raise your magic by a point, the cost is 20 karma even though you raised your effective magic from 1 to 2.

Total you've spent 10 karma (adept) + 25 (raising magic before ware) + 20 (raising magic after ware) = 55 karma
Your effective magic is 2 and you have 2 points of cyber.

And if you start at 2 magic and put in a point of ware, then raise magic, then put in another point of ware, then raise magic again you spend 15 karma for the first magic increase and 20 karma for the second magic increase. You still have effective magic 2 and 2 points of karma.
Total you've spent 10 karma (adept) + 10 (raising magic before ware) + 15 (first magic increase after ware) + 20 (second magic increase after ware) = 55 karma

It shouldn't matter what order you get cyber and magic and this fits what's done with 'ware in regards to all other attributes.

I'm a little confused, Irion. It sounds like your point is that magic and cyber are designed not to mix, and that higher-magic characters have more to lose. … So? That seems utterly natural, given the thematic choices.

@Yerameyahu
This is NOT the case after the given rules. If you take loose the points early, you can have a cybered mage who has close to NO drawback to magic from beeing cybered.

You just have to pay a flat amount of Karma and than you may have a point of cyber. If you are smart about (or the situation is good) you may limit this amount by quite a bit.


@thorya

Thanks, thats what I am trying to argue here.

Just to be a grammar nazi...




Lose.

I say the order should matter. Why not? Essence loss is a permanent one-way thing that happens at certain points in time; it's not like putting on clothes. The argument is that it causes different results, but there's no reason that should be assumed bad or wrong. So it's not a theoretical problem, unless you can motivate this being bad or wrong.

We've all seen the 'clever' magic/cyber management setups, and they're simply not something that happens. Not just because many people look down on jankery, but because doing it in play means spending most of your life without being able to do much. So it's not a practical problem, either. (I think you overlooked the effect on Initiation max, as well?)

In either case, the problem again seems to be the individual rules, not the basic idea. Latent Awakening shouldn't exist at all, and the Initiation cap rules seem to basically cover the cybermage 'abuse'. Mostly, though, there's just no reason a given two characters with distinct life histories should come out the same. If you spend your whole life obese, then get in shape at 40, you're going to have a different health profile from the person who got in shape at 14. If you're a serial killer who finds Jesus on death row, you have a different 'soul' from a lifelong 'saint'. Sequence and history just matter for some things.

For a SR4 example, if you start with NQs and then buy them off, you're coming out behind (or anyway, different) from the char who never had them in the first place. If you start with Restricted Gear, you're definitely losing BP relative to the person who waited. (There are many examples of this type.)

...which is why you can't equal karma spent at char gen to karma spent during advancement. Even if most costs are the same, there are more ways to spend karma at char gen, and ways that can't be extrapolated to advancement. Saying that a character who made a specific choice at char gen 'saves' karma compared to buying it later isn't really viable--they aren't equal.

Character creation, even with karma gen, has to be compared separately from advancement.

This topic is extremely actual for me. The groups new mage used "Mob Mind" or whatever the area effect control mind spell is called, and had an entire black ops team drop their weapons, leaving them extremely easy pickings for the troll samurai. It has to be nerfed, or he will continue to be game breaking.

I'm considering either going with the "don't be a jerk" route, the player is a sensible enough guy and will probably do whatever I recommend, but I could see myself nerfing it somehow. Possibly adding regular chances to shake off the effects, making the spell a lot harder to cast, or maybe even rewriting it or banning it from play in it's current form.

I'm still undecided on what would work best, and our next session is already two days away.. /ponders

@Tias
The problem is, that this kind of spells work very poorly with Shadowrun.

There are regular chances to shake off the effect in the rules, but this only nervs the spell in the way it should be used.

The offensive use would still be out there...

The best way I may think of is to increase the intervals in which the resistant tests are made (maybe Force min). (Making the spell last longer)
But making the resistant test not willpower but willpower+charisma(or logic).
So it is harder to cast the spell on people, and if there is a mage around it gets very hard, very fast.
Drastically limiting the combat effectivness. (The same should be applyed for the influance power)

One option is to make the spell slower. Instead of a combat interrupt, it's more like a Permanent: you'd have to sustain it for X time before it really kicks in (not an exact analogy).

Put a mage (or two) on your next black ops team. Counterspelling would go a long way towards making it resistable. Throw in some drone/spirit support for said black ops team.

Again, that team likely was recording everything that happened (including biometric feedback) to be sent to home base. Whomever payed for the team, likely knows someone mind controlled them. They'll be alert the next time.

You could even say that every time the spell is used (in a manner that they can be traced back to), they gain a point of notoriety.

The 'black ops teams' should have mage(s), totally. At minimum, a spirit quietly watching them.

How was this considered a black ops team without magical defense?
Also, I've always considered the "do something suicidal" kind of command to be grounds for a re-resist as normally happens every force number of rounds. This might not even be a house rule since I thought I saw somewhere that having someone beleivably point out to you that you are under mental control gave you another chance to resist and "suicidal action" would qualify as 'point out mental control' to me.
I'll have to dig and see if I can find a "re-resist if mental control is pointed out" rule anywhere...

@Tias

The way I run mind control spells is that anything that puts the NPC (or for that matter PC) in physical danger snaps them out of it automatically, no reroll required. So if the lead is flying commands to surrender don't work: the "fight or flight" reflex takes over. If lead isn't flying, such commands are viable, although good luck with your sammie and others moving up to the group and cuffing them before they have had a few chances to shake the spell off. This house rule works well on my table.

As for your Black Ops team so easily falling for an area effect spell, play them smarter. As others have said, Black Ops guys should have some kind of counterspelling protection, but also why are they lining up like ducks for the mage to target? They should deploy spread out, with some of them covering the rest of the team from cover (visibility modifiers help reduce the PC mage's DP) while the others advance, fanned out in such a way as to avoid as much as possible the possibility of them presenting multiple targets for burst fire, grenades and AoE spells. They should also be using things like thermographic smoke and flash-paks to reduce emeny targetting DPs as they advance into an area that may contain enemy hostiles, and be making good use of Fly-Spies and detection spells (Detect Life, Detect Firearms and Detect Commlinks are all good options) to help them scout areas out. If you play HTRT teams as the well-drilled tactically aware badasses they are, they will become much more of a threat to your PCs.

I don't have the book in front of me and I've never used the spell(s) in play but doesn't it require a complex action to cast the spell then a simple to give them a command? Mage mind controls a group, they use everything at their disposal to wipe him and his group out (including using all their edge for any attack tests as they know they're screwed) in the next IP. If the mage is still alive then he can use a simple action to command them.

Seems like that mixed with ultrasound to see through invis would go a long way to handle the problem unless I've misremembering the rules on that line of spells.