Because your GM has been kind to you.

Like some already said, if you let your vampires get aways with taking drugs, you are already far beyond the scope of reasonable GMing...

There are a lot of things with less stress to the rules and even worse effects...

Some people here are really really overstating magicians powers with the utter silly claims like:
1"Mages are best at doing aoe damage"
2"Stunbolt is the best for killing spirits"

1:Mages can never rival the aeo damage potential of a full auto grenade launcher or heck even just someone with a couple of grenades to throw
2:Ares thundertruck gauss rifle just laughs at ItNW, with one net hit it can har spirits up to force 13 and that goes up by 1 for every extra nethit, those same spirits have about the same resistance pool then a generalist mage has to cast that stunbolt and if it's a type that has counterspelling then it most likely has higher resistance pool then a dedicated combat mages casting pool. For more sensible force spirits there are quite a lot of other options too, really if a streetsam cant take down spirits atleast as fast as a mage(meaning 1 per IP) he's just bad and under armed, if he's good and has right weapons he might be taking down spirits 2 times as fast as the mage(2 per IP)

@Mäx
Sorry, but both your options come with a LOT of problems.

Yeah, the Ares thunderstruck profits big time, that shadowrun does not care how big a weapon is....
(Which is responsible for a lot of silly shit)
But still it is a big Weapon as is the granade launcher. (Not to mention the ammo it will cost you)

And well, you need to hit the spirits first. That might not be that easy.
A spirit of man (force 10) sustaining a combat reflex spell on himself can go up to 18 dice on reaction tests easy. Hit something like that...

And if you need the high end gear in the book to kill something an out of chargen mage may summon if he just left the shower, there is something wrong with the rules.

1) FA grenade launchers should have never existed.
2) Grenades cause Friendly Fire. Stunballs typically do not.
3) Grenades scatter, stunballs don't.
4) Stunballs have 1 resist roll. 'Nades, two (with armor to boot).



I stopped reading. Most runners in most games will not have access to these. Not to mention the dubious -1/2 AP that may, or may not, effect spirits and ITNW (people think it's cheap because SnS has it, but not when gauss rifles have it?)

But you really dont, that just an example where the gun pretty much just utterly rumps spells.

For those milder force spirits, a simple battle rifle loaded with APDS handles anythink up to force 6 with one net hit.
As does WP grenade, Sniper rifle with APDS and M79B1 LAW just to name a few cheap options available at chargen.


1. maybe not, but their hard to beat on aeo damage
2.Stunball can cause just as much Friendly fire damage as a grenade(ofcource counterspelling you provide does help to mitigate that). Grenades also hit all target whether you see them or not(usually a plus), also gas grenades dont cause friendly fire if your team is wearing appropriate protection.
3.Gas grenades dont lose damage from distance so scatter doesn't matter much
4.Coincidentally the second resist roll for gas grenades is pretty much irrelevant considering the usual pools of the normal opponents.
Yeah gas grenades effect isn't immidiate, but hey there has to be somethink to balance them out with other options

Oh, so GAS GRENADES are rivals to Stun Ball.

Gotcha.

(Hint "grenades" != "gas grenades" in the same way that "square" != "rectangle")


They're. They. Are.

Also, the rules are from War! and I don't believe that War! actually exists, as do many other people, so...beating or not-beating the damage output of a rule that is largely considered "broken" from a book that is considered by most to be "not canon"/"not RAW" is irrelevant.

Well they are the only ones you can do stun damage with(Also your the one who specifically brought in stunballs, so i would say a specifig rival is okey to bring in too)[in other words "magic != "stunball either]
For general aeo damage others are quite okey too(also scatter doesn't matter that much for this either), i just personally prefer the mostly non lethal option(oh there are deadly gasses, but those are little iffy to use in a general fight)

Stunball is simply the most efficient spell. Other spells function exactly the same, except [higher drain, elemental effects] and the comparison would still be accurate.

Not really, for example indirect spells are much more likely to cause friendly fire(by potentially stopping you from providing counterspelling) just like Willy Pete grenades have more potential for friendly fire then gas grenades do.

So....

1) FA grenade launchers should have never existed. (still valid)
2) Grenades cause Friendly Fire. Fireballs typically do not. (debatable: a fireball will do friendly fire damage, but targetting it so that it does not, as well as the extra counterspelling dice, generally means that the hit allies are taking negligible damage)
3) Grenades scatter, Fireballs don't. (still valid)
4) Fireballs have 1 resist roll. 'Nades, two (with armor to boot). (half-valid: fireballs get two resist rolls, but one is at half-impact, whereas 'nades get full ballistic)

Oh, and one I forgot:

5) [AOE spells] have modifiable range: spend net hits (or use a lower force). 'Nades do not.

Actually, you can Expand/Reduce their AOE (not Range, since it is LOS) at the expense of ACTUAL DICE. You must remove dice from the pool to do so.

Really? Really?

Are we seriously debating how the rules balance of Mages based on Stunballs?

Talk about missing the point. There is an entire array of spells. Complaining about damage output or how the attack rolls are weighted towards the one throwing the spell is just the very surface of the problem.

Sure some could say that 40% of the spells are useless or "fluff." That still leaves you with 60%. A good chunk of these can rival, from a non-obvious "unarmed" combatant, anything a Street Samurai could throw at someone.

This isn't even to mention the staggeringly large portion of spells that are a nebulous rules vacuum! There is a reason why Mental Manipulation is barred from Shadowrun Missions for example, it has less to do with manhandling the story line or characters and more to do with the fact that the rules feel more like a direct translation from a writers bar napkin than actual rules for an extremely powerful system. The mental manipulation is just a start, but so many of these spells leave each table with so much to interperete on their own that they might as well have ommited a spell list, told you to roll dice for whatever you want, and then just go crazy.

I haven't even touched spirits, or how people think that shooting them is "cheese." You know what is cheese? Treating ITNW as actual immunity. How much effort does it take a mage to conjure a Force 2 spirit and sick it on someone every sunrise and sunset from here to eternity. None. That spirit does no damage.... so fucking what! Force 2 spirit... with actual immunity to normal weapons.... poking you... forever.... no adequate way to defend yourself or reprisal aside from finding another damned mage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VDvgL58h_Y

So bullets NEED to beat ITNW. It isn't cheese. Period.

I don't know how this discussion has gone on this long. "I'm having problems in my game with magic being too powerful" and the response is "So add more magic." Really?


and you guys want to talk about stunballs?


I FEEL LIKE IM TAKING CRAZY PILLS.

To me its not that mundane cannot trump magic, more that it requires a great deal more knowledge and effort from the player/GM to be able to do so while a mage character can E-Z mode through a run without any magical counters or else very tailored anti-magic mundane counters made from someone who knows the magic system better than their opposition.

It would be like a hacker/rigger or technomancer having a run where all firewalls are 0 with a standard account capable of all commands with no agents or spider opposition present and half the run filled with armed drones in wireless active mode.

I feel I could explain to someone how to play an effective mage (not the best, but effective) in about 5 minutes. Trying to explain how to play an effective sam, adept, hacker, rigger, or techno would take much longer.

As an off topic note if I were to GM a SR4 game instead of play then I would probably tell my players "if you don't play a spellcasting character then magicians and critters with magician like powers, spirits over a force of 3, etc will just not exist except on runs where you are getting paid 20x normal and you can just opt out of those jobs". I don't think the people I game with would mind that at all. People might argue I'm missing out but I rather think I'm missing out of all the cool mundane methods of doing things that magic often makes irrelevant.

So, out of curiousity, why not just GM a session of Cyberpunk 2020 then?

I've never played Cyberpunk 2020. Is the system comparable?

My guess is: because of the lore and setting he is accustomed to and enjoys, some of the best Fluff in TTRPGs is in Shadowrun. He might still want hackers, still want riggers, still want street samurai and the 'ware he's used to, as well as occasional proportional opposition (he mentioned low force spirit and magic) from the paranormal.


My assertation is: If you strip Shadowrun down to just mundanes and gunfighting (happened in a game I've played in, mostly by accident and we rolled with it) it works surprisingly well.

The game is much better at handling only one or two facets of its three faceted system. Play an all Hacker game and the Matrix and supporting world works great. All Mage games can focus on the paranormal and vision questy stuff just fine. All firepower and 'ware games can have some amazingly uncomplicated sprawling firefights. The system doesn't get complicated, unbalanced, leave players twiddling their thumbs waiting, or get into the areas of rules limbo until you start stuffing it together.

Rules quote?

Here you go from sr4A page 183
"Area spells a ect all valid targets within the radius of e ect,
friend and foe alike (including the caster). For this reason, spellcasters
often choose to vary the radius of area spells.  is is done by withholding
dice from the Spellcasting Test. Th e caster can reduce or expand
the base radius by 1 meter for every die withheld from the Spellcasting
Test. Dice expended to change the radius of e ect cannot be used in
any related test, such as resisting Drain for that spell."

Wierdly, that seems to say that you lose the same amount of dice from your drain resistance pool too

In SR3 you could withold dice from spellcasting and add them to your drain resistance test. It's just a copy'n'paste error.

I dunno, seems fine to me. Drain is harder when you're messing with it.

Indeed...

Ah, I'd thought he was saying you could do it with NADES.
With spells I knew you could, even if I misremembered the mechanics.
(Also, lower force = lower radius, as IIRC, the radius is based on Force AND Magic)

No, it does not. It suggest you may withhold dice from the spellcasting test, in order to resist drain. (Like it has been said, it is probably a copy/paste error...)
(Or do you add your spellcastingpool to your drainresistance? The point is, if you can withhold dice and add them to the drain test, it could be argued you could also increase and decrease the range. And since players (proven beyond reasonable doubt on this board alone) tend to use always the one interpretation(even it is silly as hell) which gives them a bit more power, writers sometimes directly forbid it. )

In SR1 & 2, you could withhold dice from the spell casting test to buff up your drain resistance roll. For some spells, you absolutely wanted to do that.

That looks to be a copy & paste / transcription error as in SR4, your drain resistance pool is wholly separate from your spell casting pool.

No, because I haven't failed my Tests.

My group must be playing SR wrong then because our mages are more likely to use such weaponry than just about anyone else. Anything a mundane can do a mage can do.

Chainsaw Samurai got it right that the problem with mages has never been their combat potential -- it is their versatility.

Also… why would you be carting around a FA GL in all the same places and situations you'd have 'a mage'?

What? You're just going to sit back and let the Mage have all the fun?

Why would anyone go FA with a grenade launcher anyway? You don't get an extra grenade roll per `nade launched, it's just the added bonus damage.

Twin MGL-6's are the way to go. 4 full nade rolls > 1 nade roll with a +9

Not quite how it works, Almost Normal. Take a look at WAR!

I thought the common consensus was to ignore everything in War!? (!? seems odd, but... it's correct I suppose.)

Not from me. Though there are a few things that are odd in WAR!, not all of it is problematic.
For FA Grenades, i would just plot the 10 Drifts, and then compare zones/overlapping zones of effect. Lot of rolls, to be sure, but it gets rid of the craziness of just amping up the DV to crazy levels.

Well then you dont really have have full auto grenade launchers either.

But really mostly it's just people who love to hate it that are preaching about ignoring it.
Most of the silly think in it are damm easy to fix as a gm and it has some damm good additions to the game, like Battle Rifles,mines and the indirect combat spells smartlink.

Shame it requires more fixes than the entire rest of SR4(A) combined. >..>

Not really...

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Well, depends on what you draw the line...
The stuff in WAR! seems to jump very high, I have to admit.

But yes, if you stay reasonable and not try to balance rules by GM-fiat, you will have a lot fixes in place after core, augmentation, streetmagic, arsenal and runners companion alone.
(If you are thorough probably even more than there is stuff added in WAR!)

Not really and the silliest thinks are pretty irrelevant to 99% of games anyway(ie. the submersible warship)

Yeah. Cause no player would ever want a firewall/ECCM/Whatever of 10

Pretty much what Chainsaw Samurai said. When I played in a few SR2 campaigns magic was really underplayed in those campaigns and I enjoyed it greatly. I have not enjoyed SRun as much in any edition when magic takes on more prominence because countering or using magic seems to trump most other concerns at the tables where I have played. Just like I wouldn't enjoy the game if it became "heavy weapons solve all problems". I can't say a magic heavy game or a game about heavy weapons is wrong, but I wouldn't want to GM one of those. I don't think I have to stop playing ShadowRun to accomplish that though.

That probably would be more realistic, but it really would take a long time to roll out. I'd rather they just followed the normal rules except they always count as a narrow burst, and grenades with a fixed area add +25/50/100% for short/long/full. So FA smoke grenades cover a 20m radius, FA flashbangs are 15S/-3/20m radius, and FA frag grenades are 21p(f)/+5 (and thus 21m radius). The larger radius represents scattering a bunch of grenades around the area, and the increased damage, where applicable, is overlapping blasts. Simple, reasonably well balanced, and consistent with other rules.

That said, the "roll each grenade separetely" method is still better than the "taping 20 frag grenades together will destroy a main battle tank" method WAR! uses.

EDIT: FA!=HV.

Indeed... Too many rolls. However, I do like your incrementingly larger AOE, though. Good Idea.

Ofcource they do, so it's good their in the book

And other archetypes haven't?

Please, invite me to tell you how one WIP character I've got, will have over forty dice to soak non-mental damage with.

...

As for the mage described by the OP? Invis, combat, AND levitate? Just how diverse IS his spell repertoire, anyway? Because it sounds like he was actively TRYING to be the center of attention. IOw, he tried to build a JOAT mage, who could solve almost anything he came up against. And that is a very un-kosher approach to take, on the player's behalf. Niche protection, IMO, is important for group harmony, and collective enjoyment.






Yep. And, as has been pointed out a few times now, they've had SIXTY YEARS to do this in. That's two entir egenerations. It's entirely possible that you could have Grandma, Dad, and Daughter all owrking for the same Mega, all Mages, and of course all of the same Tradition.






Soul-crushing boredom would eventually evoke a sense of DESPAIR.

And that most certainly sounds like the kind of thing that can create a background count, to me.

...

HOWEVER ... given that, as observed, Corps probably have more than 2-3 mages around any major facility .... mages who would not function as well in said background count? I'm pretty sure the corp stages Morale-boosting events now and then, and maybe has some initiated mages (Geomancers maybe?) come through to "smooth over" various job-sites. So probably, most places that aren't specifically magic-oriented, have a BGC of 0. Not all, but most.






Maybe slap a Rating 1 Ward on them?

Wards can't be moved.

Hmm. So much for that idea.

Also, they have to extend at least one metre from their anchor in every direction.
Consultant: "What about that huge warehouse near the docks? You're not using it for anything."
CEO: "Oh, that's where we store our badges. HR hasn't figured out how hand them to new employees, though. Last I heard they were investigating something called ten foot poles..."

Actually, I just realised how to do it. Well, maybe.

Custom-designed spells, that cause the badge to project/display a specific pattern of color and shape on the astral when touched by a spirit, or by another custom-designed spell. Spells that become "permanent" a la Healing, and last for .... oh, call it [Force] months.

Sure, mass-production would be .... impractical. Even if you use Magic 1 and 2 mages (highschool kids just learnign spellcasting, perhaps?) to churn out F1 castings.

But, if you only use that kind of badge for off-hours - meaning, security personnel, night janitors, etc - then you don't NEED a lot.

So, now you direct yoru spirits, watchers included, to "touch" the badge's astral shadow whenever they first see a particular sentient being ... and if the color or shape doesn't match, or if they don't HAVE one of those special badges ... off they go to raise the alarm.

...

I can see security companies offering exactly that sort of scheme as an add-on to their usual Site and Magical security services.

And what's better is? It offers new possibilities for Legwork and/or on-site ops for the players: "get the spell formula" or "get some of those badges". I can also see groups being sent on a run, where said formula is the specific target. Especially, along with the schedule of "what shape(s) and color(s) are the A-OK sign for THIS month, at X location?"

It'd be like stealing the keys to that location's main security nexus. Very valuable, very well protected, definitely shadowrun-worthy.

At that point, its a self sealing stem bolt. A thought out one, perhaps, but a stem bolt nonetheless.

Not that I'd want to fuck up anybody's DS9 reference, but what's the difference between Runners getting assigned to cleaning duty, getting issued normal badges and Runners getting assigned to cleaning duty, getting issued super-magical badges?
After all the cleaning service will be provided by the lowest bidder, so even billions spent on astral security will mean diddly squat...
No self sealing stem bolt is worth more than the guy selling them, usually Quark, maybe Morn himself.

According to the errata for Street Magic, it is the movement of the anchor in relation to the ward it supports that is not allowed. Hence, the inside of a vehicle can be warded, and the vehicle can move around with it inside.

However, the size of a ward is limited to greater than a cubic meter in volume.