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mraston
I just ran my first game and I noticed the magician character was constantly "stealing the show". I knew in advance that his stunball would going to cause some problems and gave a few of the grunts a shaman with a decent counterspelling skill, but he just ripped through them one or two shotting a couple of groups.

At other times, Levitate was just used all over the place, even one another character wanted to actually do something (ie: use his gymnastics skill and some of the gear he had bought). One of the guys even said "You've had your turn, let us do something".

So my question was; how do I cap a magicians power without seeming like I'm picking on them, I don't want to just give all grunts high counterspelling and put mana barriers up all over the place (although I do plan for the group to head to Tir Tairngire for their next run).

Also, what are the limits to Mind Control, this spell popped up a few times and was generally used in a thoughtful way, but I ruled out NPC's being controlled to put a bullet in their own head (although I couldn't find any rules to back up my "ruling").
Yerameyahu
You can't. Magicians' players will interpret anything up to and including not buying them cookies as persecution. You have to ignore their whining and nerf them to the wall. biggrin.gif

Seriously, though: the group has to sit down and state the problem, and explain the adjustments. To many groups, this means increased BGC/coverage, more wards, more awakened opposition (which can be pretty annoying and hurts the mundanes even more).
TheOOB
Your thinking about this the wrong way, instead of trying to limit the magician, ask how can you make runs that showcase everyone's skills. Once you start to think about things that way, the problem usually fixes itself. If you have a hacker, give him something to hack, if you have a sniper, give him a long range target to shoot at, if you have a face, give him someone to talk to. You should try to have each run have a situation which is best solved by a specific character, and if you have a player who doesn't have any unique skills or abilities that allow you to do that, help them modify their character to give them a clear role.

Back to the magician. The first thing is to make sure you're actually following the rules. Spells cause drain, make sure they are calculating their drain and drain resistance properly, and recording it on their sheet. Make sure they are applying their wound penalties when they take drain, and their sustaining penalties when they attempt actions with one or more spells going. Don't let First Aid checks go out of hand, there are a lot of penalties that can apply to field medical work(especially on awakened patients), and remind players that performing first aid requires some time, some empty space, and usually makes some noise(also med kits do run out of stuff if they're used too much). Also make sure they know that Hits on a spellcasting rolls are limited by Force(so a force 1 levitate spell is unlikely to lift up a person for example).

The thing is, unless they are way better at making characters than everyone else, a magician shouldn't be overpowering the rest of the party via sorcery. Spells are typically fairly drain intensive, often have difficult tests, and they are also fairly expensive to purchase. They also are not always as good as people give them credit for. Damage spells, even direct damage spells, for example, do notably less damage than firearms. If your team is being outclasses by a single spell, the problem may be that they made poor characters rather than the magician is too powerful.

Mental manipulation spells are kind of a problem, they are too powerful for their drain, and don't have preset limits. However if you make someone do a action that goes agienst their nature, I'd say it's fair to give them another willpower test at a bonus to shake it off.

The real power of a magician is in conjuring, a magician who primary uses sorcery is fairly easy to rein in.

As for limited a magicians power, barriers are fairly common place and any trained combat squad should have some magical support. Remember spells have visual penalties, and don't benefit from electronic vision enhancement, so smoke can really hurt a spellcaster. Also, if you have street magic, note that background counts are not all together uncommon, especially low rank ones.
mraston
QUOTE (TheOOB @ Apr 8 2012, 03:04 AM) *
Your thinking about this the wrong way, instead of trying to limit the magician, ask how can you make runs that showcase everyone's skills. Once you start to think about things that way, the problem usually fixes itself. If you have a hacker, give him something to hack, if you have a sniper, give him a long range target to shoot at, if you have a face, give him someone to talk to. You should try to have each run have a situation which is best solved by a specific character, and if you have a player who doesn't have any unique skills or abilities that allow you to do that, help them modify their character to give them a clear role.


Yeah I thought I had that, I had sneaking bits and climbing bits and hacking bits, but during the sneaking bits the magician would say "Oh I'm going to cast invisibility on you now", or the infiltration bits "I'm going to levitate you there".

Smoke is a great idea!

Yerameyahu
QUOTE
the problem may be that they made poor characters rather than the magician is too powerful.
Even if they did, the problem is still that the mage is too powerful (coincidentally).
Udoshi
I find that limiting or restricting Overcasting does a lot to cut down on high-end mage abuse and WINstakill direct combat spells.

The best houserule I've found for overcasting changes it thusly: Overcasting is still stun, but removes the 'divide by 2' part of the equation. It means mages can't kill themselves with spells unless they fill up ALL their stun and overflow to physical, but if they are overcasting a high-drain spell (lets say its F/2+3) at force 9, that's going to be 12 drain, which means they are very likely to just fall over after unleashing.

As for control thoughts: That spell series and Slow are two of the most commonly banned spells in the game.

Also make sure to enforce the 'break the concentration' rules for sustaining spells. Make the mage make a test to keep it together under pressure once in a while.
Raiki
Also also, keep in mind that the target of a mental manipulation spell gets another resistance roll every (I believe, I'm afb at the moment) [Force] combat rounds. As soon as their total hits exceed the net hits of the spell, they break free. A fact the mage in my game only learned about once the sec guard he'd Control Thoughts'd shot him with his APDS loaded Super Warhawk. That player still bitches about that.


~R~
Irion
QUOTE ("Yerameyahu")
You can't. Magicians' players will interpret anything up to and including not buying them cookies as persecution.

And the funny thing is, the next posts actually proved this point.

Honestly: The main issue is that magic go more power with every new sourcebook...

And now there are so many ways to get a boost and they are all affected differently by nervs... So this question is really hard to awnser in general...

Vision penalties fuck up the pure mage really nice.
The cybered mage uses cybereyes from the start.

BGC fucks up mages who rely on foci big time. Mages who have filtering metamagic do not care much about it.
Wards annoy mages who rely on sustained spells...

So every one of this mages needs a different kind of nerv.
The cybermage should pay full for the points of cyber he bought. (1.5 points of Ware, magic from 4 to 5 would cost 35 Karma)

For the beginner pure mage thinking of visibility modifieres does the trick.

The powerfocus 4 from the start mage will be hit with a BC of 2 very nicely.

And the one with several sustaining focis, all spells casted with edge to get more hits than the foci have force: Limit the hits by force when sustaining spells or just use wards and have him recast the spells...
UmaroVI
One thing that is definitely true is that mages are easier to make well than any other type of character. Most people's first mage is at least OK, but there's a lot of ways to suck as a mundane or adept. It really depends on what your other characters are; you might just need to include challenges that they are good at and that magic can't solve as well. Or you might have to either get someone to redesign their character. Or you can always have Background Count all over the place, but that's probably the "solution" you are trying to avoid.

Wards really should be all over the place, though. They aren't very expensive to make and if you don't have wards, your building is not secure. At all. It's like not having locks. An unwarded building doesn't even need fancy magic to infiltrate; you can just have a spirit waltz in astrally, materialize, do whatever it wants, and leave.

What are your other characters, exactly?
mraston
QUOTE (UmaroVI @ Apr 8 2012, 11:36 AM) *
What are your other characters, exactly?


Well it's a pretty big group actually; I have a Hacker, and 2 stealth guys, one focusing melee one on ranged, A rigger-ish guy focusing transport and physical locks, plus one other magician who is more of the face character.
Makki
One group we banned direct Combat spells completely, byebye Stunball. The other group we at least use the optional rule that every net hit increases drain by one.
BGC is great and can take out the mage entirely, but hurts adepts as well.
Eratosthenes
QUOTE (mraston @ Apr 7 2012, 11:11 PM) *
Yeah I thought I had that, I had sneaking bits and climbing bits and hacking bits, but during the sneaking bits the magician would say "Oh I'm going to cast invisibility on you now", or the infiltration bits "I'm going to levitate you there".

Smoke is a great idea!


For invisibility, realize that unless they're using Improved Invisibility, it won't work on cameras/sensors. Even then, they'd need to be casting it at high force to beat most electronic sensors, to get enough hits to overcome their object resistance (4-6).

Mages are good for quick, short-duration encounters. When they start having to sling a lot of mojo around, they're going to start getting drain. And once they start suffering from drain, it's a quick slide down into near uselessness. Make the encounters have multiple events: they need to climb a fence, then sneak past a camera, then fight off some goons, then climb another obstacle. Those relying solely on skills will be fine. The mage, unless they're conserving their mana, should be hurting from drain by now.

Don't give the mage the time to rest in between encounters.
Neraph
QUOTE (Makki @ Apr 8 2012, 06:39 AM) *
One group we banned direct Combat spells completely, byebye Stunball. The other group we at least use the optional rule that every net hit increases drain by one.
BGC is great and can take out the mage entirely, but hurts adepts as well.

A better house-rule, in my opinion, is to modify the Drain Codes of Indirect Spells by between -2 and -4 and increase Direct Combat Spells by the same amount. It makes Indirect look more appealing while still making Direct useful, but dangerous to the caster without adding a mechanic that does not exist for any other type of spell.

As for the rest - Invisibility on an infiltrator is called good teamwork, as is Levitate on someone who is climbing. It is teamwork and efficiency. Just remember to make sure the mage keep track of his penalties for sustaining spells and remember that Invisibility can be resisted by opponents. Also, look at Wards.
Yerameyahu
Hehe. That's still kinda not the point: Angel Summoner *is* 'good teamwork', if the goal is to win as efficiently as possible. But it's a game, so the goal is for everyone to have fun. That can involve tweaks that are 'wrong', from the point of view of either efficiency or game-consistency. It just depends on the group and power levels.
The Wrestling Troll
Send them to runs where other mages set up a magical defense.
By that I do not mean mana barriers and such but rather watcher ghosts that keep watch out for magical activitys.

So if the mage wants to use his spells he has to think twice or else the whole group gets detected. Same with blasting the ghosts with spells.
That would "limit" the mages until the group gets detectd anyway or it's the big showdown smile.gif

And there is always the FAB-3 bacteria that eats on magical stuff nyahnyah.gif (Just for the lulz to piss of your mages hehe)
Halinn
And don't forget that the opponents would know that it is imperative to geek the mage first. Once combat gets going, it's laughably easy to see who just cast a spell, if they're casting it with any significant amount of force. Just make sure that your guards are spread out enough not to be hit with a single stunball.
Ears
You know, the easiest way would be to find out what power level the players want and adjust the characters accordingly. If the mage is above it, move some BPs worth of abilities from magical stuff into other areas and if the mundane characters can't do what they're supposed to, help and optimise them.
Maybe it'll take mix of both things but it'll still be easier than changing rules, handwaving BGC and tailoring all the runs to specifically annoy the mage.
rlor
Give some of your bad guys ultrasound (invisibility is useless but infiltration checks are still usable) and glowmoss. Add in motion sensors, pressure plates (levitate cancels out), mono-filament trip wires (which can be hilarious when the mage levitates someone into) etc. Use smoke (the dual natured one especially), flash-packs, flashbangs (I'd suggest you not have them use the chunky salsa effect), and even some gas grenades. Make sure all the bad guys are not visible to your team at the same time. Toss in drones. And by toss in drones I don't mean a max armored steel lynx fully kitted out with super-rigger piloting it and an LMG. I mean a bunch of small cheapish drones with small arms weapons equivalent to whatever you have your average bad guy using and running autonomously so they're not rolling a ton of dice.
Glyph
I think it may be tactics that are making it too easy for the mage. If the guards use cover more and don't huddle together, then the mage won't be one-shotting them left and right (and an optimized street samurai with an assault rifle or grenade launcher can be just as deadly). Remember that these are mooks, who are not supposed to be that tough for a combat-oriented shadowrunner. Numbers and some elementary tactics can still make them dangerous, though. Mages tend to be squishy, physical stat-wise, so a bit of return fire can mess up his day. Don't forget that some enemies might require a perception test to even spot, if they are hidden.

Remember spell Drain and that spell Force caps successes. For invisibility, remember that it requires line of sight to the subject (when buffing teammates). For levitate, remember that sometimes, it can make you a sitting duck. Have more defenses that can't be easily circumvented by two very common spells that have been around forever. Motion detectors, a head security guy checking the camera feeds from the security guards' helmets, MagLocks, and so on. But like Ears said, don't go out of your way to screw over the mage. Changing Drain for his bread-and-butter combat spells, overusing background count, and other tactics will only make the game frustrating for the player. Use the rules that are there, and mix up the challenges more, and you should be fine.
TheOOB
And make sure to keep track of drain and sustaining penalties, if you're casting invisibility and levitate all the time, you will take drain, and a mage is pretty much worthless once they are getting a penalty for sustaining 3+ spells.
Chainsaw Samurai
QUOTE (TheOOB @ Apr 8 2012, 09:06 PM) *
And make sure to keep track of drain and sustaining penalties, if you're casting invisibility and levitate all the time, you will take drain, and a mage is pretty much worthless once they are getting a penalty for sustaining 3+ spells.


Drain from invisibility and levitate? Is this your first year at Hogwart's, Harry?

But you did touch upon the only relevant weakness of Mages. They need to spend a couple Karma here and there for sustaining foci. The worst part is that this too will become the other players' problem as the player of the Mage will not cease crying about it.
Midas
QUOTE (mraston @ Apr 8 2012, 02:46 AM) *
At other times, Levitate was just used all over the place, even one another character wanted to actually do something (ie: use his gymnastics skill and some of the gear he had bought). One of the guys even said "You've had your turn, let us do something".

Sounds like you need to sit your players down and have an OOC discussion if the mage is stealing the show and making everyone else feel redundant. Suggest the player dials it back and gives the other players a chance to shine (and hopefully they will chime in and agree with you). Remind him that opponents will Geek the Mage first, and the more he shines the bigger the target on his back.

Spells like Improved Invisibility, Levitate and the mind control spells can be used to accomplish a variety of goals in a broad range of situations; it seems like your mage is either an experienced SR player or lucked out on the spells he chose. As others have mentioned, Ultrasound and motion sensors used sparingly can still ruin the invisible mage's day every once in a while; Levitate can make you a sitting duck; and as for mind control, that stuff gives you a bad rep. You are right to rule that people under mind control should not kill themselves or anything so obviously self-destructive, although be aware that this is a house rule rather than RAW.

A few other suggestions:
1) Play the opposition smart. Goons don't have death-wishes, so should spread out and use cover (reduces the mage's DP, limits the number of people affected by AoE spells). Throw in a counterspelling spirit summoning enemy mage who keeps in LoS of his colleagues but out of LoS of the PCs and some of your PC's Stunballs should fizzle out.
While we're at it, remember the radius for AoE Stunball is Force metres, so overcasting might affect other PCs and/or the mage himself in all but the biggest arenas of combat.
2) Use drones! Drones are harder to geek with magic, giving your mundane sammies something useful to do.
3) Have the opposing mage throw spirits at the PCs - while the mage is dealing with the spirit, the other PCs can be shining against the goons.
Neraph
Backround Count. I don't see much of a problem with a corporation having built up Aspected Backround Count for the Not The Group Mage's Tradition.
Halinn
QUOTE (Neraph @ Apr 9 2012, 03:57 PM) *
Backround Count. I don't see much of a problem with a corporation having built up Aspected Backround Count for the Not The Group Mage's Tradition.

The problem is that it could easily disrupt their wagemages as well. And generally wagemages are weaker than shadowrunner mages, so it could actually hurt their astral defenses to have a BC, since warding would be that much more difficult for them.
Neraph
QUOTE (Halinn @ Apr 9 2012, 08:07 AM) *
The problem is that it could easily disrupt their wagemages as well. And generally wagemages are weaker than shadowrunner mages, so it could actually hurt their astral defenses to have a BC, since warding would be that much more difficult for them.

Urm... I said Aspected for them. That means it is good for them, bad for you.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Neraph @ Apr 9 2012, 07:10 AM) *
Urm... I said Aspected for them. That means it is good for them, bad for you.


I believe that Halinn's point is that it is likely that the Corporation's mages may not be that particular Tradition either. Mages being as rare as they are, it is likely that some of them will be of a different tradition, which impairs their abilities on Corpoorate properties, just as it would possibly impair the Shadowrunner mage's abilities.
Neraph
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Apr 9 2012, 08:37 AM) *
I believe that Halinn's point is that it is likely that the Corporation's mages may not be that particular Tradition either. Mages being as rare as they are, it is likely that some of them will be of a different tradition, which impairs their abilities on Corpoorate properties, just as it would possibly impair the Shadowrunner mage's abilities.

Not when it is corporate policy to be a certain tradition. Or you can use the Similar Aspect sidebar or whatever, where it is Aspected for people who revere nature (druid, shaman, great wheel, ect.) and that would affect the party hermetic (or vice versa).
Halinn
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Apr 9 2012, 04:37 PM) *
I believe that Halinn's point is that it is likely that the Corporation's mages may not be that particular Tradition either. Mages being as rare as they are, it is likely that some of them will be of a different tradition, which impairs their abilities on Corpoorate properties, just as it would possibly impair the Shadowrunner mage's abilities.

Exactly. The fluff has it that corporations are quite active in 'hiring' mages, which seems to imply that they aren't extremely picky about what their traditions are. They might favor one tradition, but they sure won't say no to a mage of another tradition.
Eratosthenes
QUOTE (Halinn @ Apr 9 2012, 10:52 AM) *
Exactly. The fluff has it that corporations are quite active in 'hiring' mages, which seems to imply that they aren't extremely picky about what their traditions are. They might favor one tradition, but they sure won't say no to a mage of another tradition.


That's not to say though that you couldn't have a group of mages, working at a particular facility, aspect the background to facilitate their work. Be they hermetics, chaos, etc. magicians or shaman. It would also facilitate things for the corp to have those mages form an initiation group, etc.
Neraph
QUOTE (Eratosthenes @ Apr 9 2012, 08:57 AM) *
That's not to say though that you couldn't have a group of mages, working at a particular facility, aspect the background to facilitate their work. Be they hermetics, chaos, etc. magicians or shaman. It would also facilitate things for the corp to have those mages form an initiation group, etc.

Right. Magical Group MCT-13 or whatever illustrates this. The corp can hire all the hermetics, shaman, and wujen they want, but they are more than likely going to assign them to teams following similar tradition ideals to assure work efficiency.
Cheops
Problem with a lot of the advice that these guys are giving you also become deadly for the rest of the team too. Until they get their hands on some AV rounds those drones are just as likely to machine gun the Sam to death as the mage. Ditto with all the physical traps and what not.

The best ways to deal with mages are:

1) Sit down and have a discussion with your table about the issue. This works well. Mage players in my games usually play sub-optimally just to not dominate a session. Once things start turning against the team then they step in and cheese everything out.

2) Focus on splitting the group up. If the whole team can't always focus 100% of their resources on a single target then the mage can't dominate everything. Force the mage to focus on astral overwatch and he takes a sideline like the decker. This allows the stealth and combat guys to do their thing without the mage dominating their specialty. Since it is all astral the mage is the only one who can harm/be harmed by the encounter. It is also riskier since everything is physical. Nothing fucks up a run more than an astral tail.

In your case you have 2 mages but it sounds like the second is the group's only Face so he'll be busy doing Face-stuff instead of boosting everyone else. That means astral security for the team needs to fall on the abusive mage.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Neraph @ Apr 9 2012, 07:47 AM) *
Not when it is corporate policy to be a certain tradition. Or you can use the Similar Aspect sidebar or whatever, where it is Aspected for people who revere nature (druid, shaman, great wheel, ect.) and that would affect the party hermetic (or vice versa).


Except that you cannot mandate a Tradition. Corps are going to take what they can get. smile.gif
And while you can grouip like traditions together, organizationally, when the chips are down, it is likely that you will have a Corporate mage in the Aspected Domain that does not favor his Tradition. Which is BAD for the Crorp. And lets not even go into what happens when the Tradition of the Shadowrunner happens to coincide with the Aspected Domain of the Corporation. Sucks for the Corp.
Draco18s
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Apr 9 2012, 11:18 AM) *
Except that you cannot mandate a Tradition. Corps are going to take what they can get. smile.gif


"Good news! Your hired. But since you're a shaman, we're transferring you to our research base in the Ozarks."
"Why the Ozarks?"
"You really want to work in a background count aspected towards Chaos magic? 'Cause if you do, we can keep you here in corporate headquarters."
Halinn
I also imagine mages of above average power level to have a bit more leverage against their corporation. "I want to work in Seattle, or I'll accept the job offer from Ares" (except not as brazenly as that)
Bearclaw
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Apr 9 2012, 09:34 AM) *
"Good news! Your hired. But since you're a shaman, we're transferring you to our research base in the Ozarks."
"Why the Ozarks?"
"You really want to work in a background count aspected towards Chaos magic? 'Cause if you do, we can keep you here in corporate headquarters."


Which is exactly what a mega would do. Not always in all places. But for a small secure location doing ritual magic research, there's no reason why the head researcher wouldn't ask for 8 more hermetic mages to complete his circle. He'd get 5, and that would be more than enough to form an initiatory group and aspect the mana in the area. Actually, a small secure area within a large location you could do the same thing. Lots of secret labs are located in the middle of large facilities.
Irion
The major issue here is, that the rules on BC are at best vague...
There are some sights of power, which haven an BC which can be aspected. Thant there is emotional BC which probably can't be aspected.

So you would need to build the headquaters on the sights of power or somehow produce BC which is already aspected to your tradition...
Draco18s
QUOTE (Irion @ Apr 9 2012, 01:05 PM) *
So you would need to build the headquaters on the sights of power or somehow produce BC which is already aspected to your tradition...


Not really. It's implied that most of Seattle is a R1 area, with the barrens being an R2.

As for aspecting it, all you need is a single Geomancer...and a few months.
Halinn
Practically any office building would have the emotional background of boredom, I reckon. The problem with ubiquitous background count is that it will probably feel like you're singling out the magic characters. It wouldn't feel fair just to say to an adept that they suddenly have less powers than they planned on having, because they're playing in a city, or that mages can't do very much in the way of spellwork.
Mordinvan
QUOTE (Neraph @ Apr 9 2012, 07:10 AM) *
Urm... I said Aspected for them. That means it is good for them, bad for you.


I can't see any rules for that. Geomancers can aspect a mana flux, but doing it to an entire corporate property is prohibitive in terms of time and resources. So much so, I'd call shenanigans on any GM who told me it was happening anywhere but small, highly secretive, and very important compounds, as otherwise the resources to devote to such endeavors simply would not exist.
HaxDBeheader
QUOTE (mraston @ Apr 8 2012, 02:46 AM) *
I just ran my first game and I noticed the magician character was constantly "stealing the show". I knew in advance that his stunball would going to cause some problems and gave a few of the grunts a shaman with a decent counterspelling skill, but he just ripped through them one or two shotting a couple of groups.

At other times, Levitate was just used all over the place, even one another character wanted to actually do something (ie: use his gymnastics skill and some of the gear he had bought). One of the guys even said "You've had your turn, let us do something".

So my question was; how do I cap a magicians power without seeming like I'm picking on them, I don't want to just give all grunts high counterspelling and put mana barriers up all over the place (although I do plan for the group to head to Tir Tairngire for their next run).

Also, what are the limits to Mind Control, this spell popped up a few times and was generally used in a thoughtful way, but I ruled out NPC's being controlled to put a bullet in their own head (although I couldn't find any rules to back up my "ruling").


First & foremost, magic has been common knowledge for 50+ years so security common practice would be roughly as good against mages as against mundanes.

Watcher spirits roaming corp grounds & alerting mundane security if it spots anything magical: sustained spells; other spirits, or even just a mage out of designated areas. Watchers cheap like borscht.

For cash comparable to a security guards's daily wage they could have full-blown bound spirits patrolling for similarly suspiscious activity. They are much more perceptive and can use various powers to boost their effectiveness. Again, focused on alerting security before engaging.

For lesser parts of larger corps the security alert would trigger an upgrade in magical response (bound spirit travels at slightly faster than mach force if I recall correctly). High threat response teams can be choppered in with minimal delay, also.

As for mind control, it is not true puppeteering so it is completely reasonable to not permit trivially forced suicide: you need control actions for that. Control thoughts lets you add/remove thoughts. People don't always instantly act on their thoughts, especially ones that trigger intense opposing emotions. For example: you may think it is a great idea to smack this player upside their head with your sourcebook but that triggers emotional cautions (fear of repercussions, guilt, concern for your book, etc depending upon personality) that your thoughts have to navigate around to create action. Thinking "I don't need to check these guys credentials before I let them into the secure area because I know they are an in-house black ops team with authorization" won't trigger opposing emotions and may in fact trigger supporting emotions "holy crap, if I slow them down they'll get me fired or disappeared". Now, once the guard figures out he let a runner team into the secure area it might be easier to get him to off himself rather than waiting for head office to use him as a test subject in the lab...

Also, mind control has a social stigma somewhere between torture & rape, but that topic was covered in the explicit mind control thread a week or so ago.
Draco18s
QUOTE (Mordinvan @ Apr 9 2012, 02:34 PM) *
I can't see any rules for that. Geomancers can aspect a mana flux, but doing it to an entire corporate property is prohibitive in terms of time and resources.


Not really. For a background count of 2 and less it takes like 30-60 days, and the monetary investment is largely meaningless.
VykosDarkSoul
Where are the rules for BGC anyway?
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (VykosDarkSoul @ Apr 9 2012, 02:55 PM) *
Where are the rules for BGC anyway?


Street Magic
VykosDarkSoul
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Apr 9 2012, 04:06 PM) *
Street Magic


Danke
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (VykosDarkSoul @ Apr 9 2012, 03:09 PM) *
Danke


Mit Vergnügen
Chainsaw Samurai
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Apr 9 2012, 12:48 PM) *
Not really. For a background count of 2 and less it takes like 30-60 days, and the monetary investment is largely meaningless.


QUOTE
it takes like 30-60 days, and the monetary investment is largely meaningless.


QUOTE
the monetary investment is largely meaningless.


And we've just hit the nail on the head as to why dealing with corporate security, to ward off anything in particular, is a slippery slope. A nasty slippery slope that if you get carried away can make this game borderline unplayable.

Remember that Corporations are practically, for all intent and purposes, nations. They have borders, they have laws, they have "serfs," they have their own security forces which can use any amount of force for practically any cost the corporation sees fit to defend a particular interest. Different interests require different amounts of fortification.

I'm not going to get to heavy into this rant, but if a piece of pay data is worth paying a team of disposable shmucks 100,000 nuyen.gif, that is because that paydata is worth billions to whoever gets that data and is capable of exercising proper force and resources upon the situation.

In this case we're not even talking about anything heavy duty or keeping up with the fast paced world of technological intrusion, we're talking about essential Magical defenses from companies that employ the exact sorts of people who know how to implement them.

But don't think about this stuff too much. It is true that there is nothing so secure that you cannot compromise it, but you can build a system that would take years of social engineering, infiltration, and dedication to steal from (there are a few real life examples of this as well) and no one wants to play THAT kind of Shadowrun. Leave that stuff to the high paid, high risk corporate espionage personnel.
Psikerlord
Udoshi - what are those "break the concentration" rules you referred to? I'd be very interested to have something like that as an option in some circumstances.

Following on from Cheops' post - you can always "split the party" more literally... Not something you would usually want to do as a GM (in my experience of D&D, for example), but splitting the party in SR would be a surefire way to give other PCs the spotlight. If mage and friend are chasing down one lead, the other 3 PCs will be chasing down something else. You do end up with the usual split the party issues however (mainly the real time problem of half the group doing nothing while you deal with the "active" characters... but even this can be curbed if you kinda bounce back and forth regularly)... and I suppose possibly the non-mage group will have no counterspelling.... but thats not always a problem.

Mind control spells - I think you need to build in a notoreity-ish penalty for using them - very bad mojo, a kind of "mind rape", security who investigate to find evidence of mind control go out of their way to catch the offender, increasing the heat with each passing module, affecting the team rep (ie giving the mage an in-character reason make those spells "emergency" style spells rather than "go to" spells).

Probably the best solution is as some have already commented - an OOC talk with everyone focusing on fun for everyone.
Cheops
QUOTE (Psikerlord @ Apr 10 2012, 01:01 AM) *
You do end up with the usual split the party issues however (mainly the real time problem of half the group doing nothing while you deal with the "active" characters... but even this can be curbed if you kinda bounce back and forth regularly)... and I suppose possibly the non-mage group will have no counterspelling.... but thats not always a problem.


Actually not such a big problem with the improved thinking about AR. If the group is networked together through AR or Tortoise Mode (SR3 and earlier) then they can all still interact even while in different parts of the city. The mage can't cast any of his spells but he can still roll Knowledge skills and offer advice. Let's everyone interact with the current situation while only allowing those present to physically interact. Basically what deckers always used to do but extended to the whole party.

The other sweet part about spliting the party is that you can send the mages to the site that is important enough to have magical defenses while sending some of the physical guys to the seconday site which doesn't have magical defenses. Also neatly handles groups that refuse to make equally competent characters -- 2nd tier ones get the easy parts of the jobs while the top tier does the heavy lifting.
Mordinvan
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Apr 9 2012, 12:48 PM) *
Not really. For a background count of 2 and less it takes like 30-60 days, and the monetary investment is largely meaningless.

So your corps are tripping over the only places on earth where this is possible, and have more geomancers then I can even contemplate?
Shenanigans.

Edited for spelling
Draco18s
QUOTE (Mordinvan @ Apr 9 2012, 08:23 PM) *
So your corps are tripping over the only places on earth where this is possible, and have more geomancers then I can even contemplate?
Shenanigans.


Given that all cities are a BGC of 1, aspecting a section of it to "favorable" is pretty much a given.

And you only need one geomancer to do that. If you need another foothold somewhere, you hire another mage, get him to learn geomancy off the first guy, and voila.

Repeat ad nauseum.
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