just one bone to pick you there, the phrase Corporations that you use should really be MEGA-Corporations; only they have the jaw dropping extraterritorial power that you mention above and quite frankly they should be scary to cross. The rest of the corps have to respect national sovereignty and are thus barred from military etc etc forces.

Which would be a much more valid point if most of the non-mega-corporations weren't wholly owned subsidiaries of said mega-corporations, but I do concede the point.

They've also had sixty years to find the magical talent.

There is no monetary investment in Geomancy. It's a monthly Test until it works.


You can create Backround Count fairly easily. For example, simply having an enchanting workshop for a length of time will build rating 2 Backround Count (Street Magic, page 121, Sidebar). Alternatively, you can get a Free Spirit of your tradition that has Personal Domain and Long-Term Bind him at your workplace.

I couldn't remember if there was or not, and given that any monetary cost for these kinds of things is affordable for most PCs, means that the cost is a tiny drop in a very large bucket for a corp.

The only cost may be if the GM actually wants them to change the furniture, but then the prices for furniture are also non-existent.

Indeed. Although I wasn't talking strictly about Geomancy, I was talking about all forms of security. Period.

Of course there is still a cost involved in Geomancy for Corporations. The Salary of the personnel who make it happen. Which is pretty negligible considering you need them around anyway.

I'm not positive about the ins and outs of how much maintenance is required. Does the site essentially need some sort of "Magical Janitor" to come by and spruce the place up a bit, or can a corp essentially have a Geomancy Superteam that flies around the globe, gets this done, and then continues to the next location?

I also wanted to add that all of this is nothing for a Mage to feel "persecuted" over. Yes he's losing dice or facing more severe challenges (or both), but that is the cost that any archetype faces when going up against high-value targets with serious security. I'm sure the team's Street Sam and Hacker would rather be going up against rent-a-cops as opposed to highly armed and better trained hard core Corp sec.

Opposition having better equipment and training doesn't necessarily effect Mages the way it does other types of Runners. Corp Sec teams having superior body armor and weaponry directly screws with the success of a Street Samurai, better programs and Matrix defenses directly screw with a Hacker. All of the body armor and tech money can buy doesn't necessarily slow a Mage down any when it is applied to mundane security personnel (due to variety of spells available, most of which don't even care about these sorts of things). So background count, removing dice from the mage, and more intense magical countermeasures are all that can up the ante really.

I would agree with Mordivan that an Aspected Domain should remain in the realm of a highly specialized magic research lab aspected to a specific tradition. As TJ and Halinn said, given that most wage mages will be from various traditions, aspecting a whole corp facility to only one type will likely bone rather than be boon to more of their awakened staff.

Saying that, wage mages won't all be Magic 2/3 weaklings: I figure they gain karma to improve skills, Magic and initiate just like shadowrunners, just at a much slower pace. So Fred the wage mage who graduated from MIT in Magical Studies and has 20 years experience of magical research in the corp is quite likely to have a good Magic score, fairly high skills and an initiation or two under his belt ...

I really don't imagine it is as difficult as you're making it out to be (it certainly wasn't back before the traditions were simplified in previous editions. "Hermetic or Shamanistic?" *STAMP* "NEXT!").

For starters, we can assume that everyone who "graduated from MIT in Magical Studies" has the same tradition. That's what a tradition is: an organization of people dedicated to learning, practicing, and preserving a way of magic. You don't sign in to MIT and say "IMMA DROOID!" they'll tell you "Not anymore you're not," because the school is run by a particular tradition, if you already have a tradition you don't need them. Go learn magic in the woods with the druids if you're a druid (MIT probably has a few different programs of magical study, but thinking you can go there to be taught whatever the hell you want without restriction and emerge as whatever tradition you want is a little asinine).

Much like what can only be described as the emerging "raging corporate hardon" for Technomancers, there used to be and still is the same rabid recruitment for mages and has been for quite a long time. Corporate Wage Slave daddy has a magically aware daughter? The Corp knows, she's already enrolled in their elementary school. They already have a plan for the rest of her life. This plan includes teaching her magic according to the Corps paradigm tradition. That is how communities and their respective traditions work, you'd find a simplified version of the same process among the Native American communities (albeit likely a bit less sinister and coercive, Aztechnology aside).

People who work for Corps generally think they are a good thing. They pay them, they afford them their Huxleyesque lifestyle. If 1% of the population is Awakened, how many people are in a Corp? Now imagine the size of their families as well. You think it isn't going to look good on your quarterly review that you pointed out your kid or brother or wife to the Corp recruiters?

Now think of how few Mages it takes to run magical security for an entire complex. Regardless of any sort of Tradition restrictions, they've got it covered mate.

based on what exactly? Certainly not the description of what constitutes a BC 1 on pg 121 in street magic. You must be house ruling your own definition of BC 1 to be anywhere a sentient thought has occurred.


And then you need all the karma for initiations, and all the karma for the metamagic, and no other metamagics..... and you do realize the ENTIRE SITE has to be reworked to fit with the tradition its being changed to suit.... so good luck redecorating that entire city, because if the WHOLE CITY as you say is BC 1, you have to do the WHOLE CITY, and hope not a single magic using character in the entire city decides they'd like to change the traditions its aspected too, or you're screwed. Since I don't see anything in the geomancy section about doing anything smaller then the entire area with the background count, so good luck with that. Also the section specifically refers to

pg 56

and power sites as on pg 120-121 are described and examples give, and, "every random street in an entire city" is not on the list of examples.

P.S. Shenanigans.

I'm still operating on the assumption that corps have mages of differing traditions. Sure, they might try to put on pressure to develop in a certain direction through parents, but children will still be rebellious. That means that not only do they need to sculpt a the entire facility they want to aspect towards a specific tradition, they also have to have a geomancer of that tradition do the whole aspecting. Did you note that one of the examples of what it may require to do to get a place aspected is "constructing a building from scratch" or "altering the immediate landscape" . That seems to be a fairly significant cost. And failing to do so could make it harder to geomance in the future.

Nope.

If you go read Geomancy again, performing religious observances, offering sacrifices, or otherwise "ensuring the site itself observes the geomantic lore of the initiate's tradition," for example, a library of magical tomes for hermetics (or, say, a Magical Lodge, which would already be inside a corporate facility where magic is taking place). Hell, the simple presence of an enchanting station will generate R2 BC, which would be easy to Geomantically aspect to whatever tradition that enchanting station is placed inside the Lodge.

If you're worried about the number of Geomancers: you only need one mage of a specific tradition with Geomancy to lead the ritual (or run the ritual solo). Imagine the ease with which that Geomancer will find his job: "So you're telling me that just because I have this metamagic you'll be paying me to fly to various facilities around the world and Aspect them to my tradition? All expenses, including travel and housing, are paid, and then you're giving me a generous income on top? And you'll move my family also? Let me think for a second... YES!" No hazard pay, no risk - it would be the magical equivalent (or similar to) of a professor giving a lecture.

tl,dr: Any run against any facility that has mages and enchanting is done in Aspected R2 BC.

It COULD be that way, but may NOT be.

@Chainsaw Samurai...

I would be willing to bet that MIT&T does not teach just Hermeticism. I would be willing to bet you can earn degrees in several Traditions there. Hermeticism, Chaos Magic, and Black Magic are probably chief among their curriculum. They probably also have Curriculum in Voodoo, Zoroastrianism and even Wicca as well.

What the hell do you think goes on in a city, anyway?

No violent crime anywhere in the entire city? No passionate love affairs anywhere? No bars regularly visited by awakened?



Constant depressive atmosphere, the daily grind of daily life of a wave slave who lives in a crappy neighborhood, that's been crappy for decades?

Yes, a ROOM where the enchanting is occuring, not an entire compound, and NOT the whole city.


This again applies only to the area of the facility the enchanting has been occurring at, and not the entire facility. If a whole city is BC1 and you want to aspect that, you're going to need to redecorate the entire city, which I said good luck with.

Not the entire city no. There will be pockets here and there, but to BC1 the entire city, it would have to, at one point, been coated east to west, north to south, sewers to penthouses in violent crime, and typically they're not, as BC1's fade fairly quickly and the city isn't literally knee deep in blood. All those other things you list do occur, but they by no means cover the entire city. Bars are in bars, not open streets, not my office, etc.


You got it, NOTHING will be there. All examples given are things that get the heart racing. If soul crushing boredom gets your heart racing, then you're one strange person. As far as what causes BC's of one, it seems to be fair emotional maximums, and thus MOST office buildings will be realtively devoid of them, as work is typically boring as all hell, which isn't an emotional maximum.

Thank you for the NPC idea.

Sounds like background count to me.

Then you're one strange person. Being bored is in no way implied in any of the examples, and to insert it where it isn't found means your making stuff up, calling it the rules, and backing it up with 'because I said so'.

Shenanigans.

Regardless, it would still not generate a BGC throughout the city. It would be localized.

I would have to agree that it would be a more localized area, however, have you ever spent any significant amount of time at the lower end of a larg corp? There is a severe degree of depression in many, which in turn leads to pensivness, which in turn leads to snappish comments, which in turn then leads to anger and retribution, albiet usually petty. However, the point is that many places, even without direct magical intervention, have a very very charged emotional aura.

Yes many would. However this would not cover the entire city, and if GM's start coating large areas of cities in such 'environments', I'm going to make magical traditions which focus on being snappy, and short tempered, pretty sure there are mentor spirits for that already.

Oh definatly agreed, I dont believe it would blanket the whole city, i would say rather that if you took a map of the city, tacked it to a wall, put up fine mesh razor wire about 3 feet in front of it and fired a few random pot shots with a paintball gun, then you would probably have a resonable map


Plus, think how fun it would be

My point is, just walking down the street a mage can (or should) expect to encounter background count, at rating 1, very frequently, even if it's just patches, with different "aspects." For a GM to say "yeah, there's BGC here" and coming up with a reason is easy.

And if a corp wants their HQ (or really, any other building) to be emotionally charged in some way, it's trivial to make it happen.

And rather than boredom and despair, I prefer "Insane, oppressive excitement and hollow-happiness." The kind brought on by constantly grinning middle aged men with slightly loosened ties and high-blood pressure. The kinds that lead team building exercises and yell "come on gang!" when it is time to file some mindless report. The demonic fakey grin spreading wider and wider, their eyes so open they look to burst from sockets. His forehead always shiny with sweat. I'd be willing to bet everyone knows the kind of guy I'm talking about.

There's no soul crushing depression in the halls of the Corps, that doesn't settle in until the ride home where you're mind is finally allowed to wander to such questions as "What the hell am I doing with my life?" or "How did I get stuck in such a horrible dead-end job?"

But while you're there it is just row upon endless row of cubicles, all filled with grinning fake people. They're all just so happy to help each other, and filled to the brim with bullshit pro-Corporate catch phrases about team work, drinking soy-caf out of little mugs with mildly sarcastic (and totally not offensive) sayings. All of them are fake-ecstatic to help each other, because that promotion that they will work themselves into the grave before they get is always "Just around the corner."

I tend to favor Draco's argument here.
That said, the solution to limiting PC mages isn't BCG, though. BCG effects every type of magical character, including Adepts. In contrast to mages though, adepts are rather balanced. Few adept powers grant advantages that you can't get out of cyberware, either and come nowhere close to the problems mages create.

Starting with "improved invisibility" (and yeah, I don't like ruthenium polymers, either) at the low end, the problem of mages (from my perspective) mainly arises from their unparalleled versatility. Mages are by far the best scouts, the best crowd control, the best area damage, the best defense and the best social engineer. And that's not even the full extend of their capabilities.
If you start "solving" that by creative application of BCG areas, you just screw over the adpets of your team as collateral damage.

This is one of the reasons I started to exclude PC mages from my groups. That's not a "solution", either, but it allows me more creative freedom in designing obstacles for the group to overcome. I am fine with adepts, but mages are just nowhere near balanced, in my opinion.

Well one limitation i see is that while a mage may be "the best" and an adept/sam is only "better than average" is that a mage is only "the best" in spurts, whereas an adept/sam is "better than average" all day long.

That's only partially true, though. With drain pools easily in the 12-14 range, few activities will really "tax" a mage. And especially the aspects they are strongest in, namely recon and infiltration, require almost no investment on their part. Even a meager Force 6 spirit with concealment is a massive boost to overall group infiltration capabilities. And Astral Projection is the single best recon tool in the game. Then there is also ritual magic with clairvoyance and clairaudience, just to name the most obvious contender.

But even if it were only in spurts, the mere fact a single PC can overshadow an entire team is wrong (in my opinion). I have had many sessions after which the players were disappointed, just because the mage finished yet another mission on his own. It makes them feel obsolete.

If you ask me how to make it better, I won't be able to present you with an answer, though. Been thinking about this a lot, but I just can't figure out a way to balance mages without completely redesigning the entire concept of magic in SR. (And yes, I have similar problems with mages in other systems as well, invisibility being one of the recurring problems).

Dont get me wrong, I agree with you, I just had to point out the limitations I have noticed, such as they are. I suppose it helps that the mage I have to GM for cant make a drain roll to save his life (almost literaly). Its not that he doesnt have the dice, he just has shitty luck.

And as far as other systems, I again agree. I have a habit of attempting to break the hell out of systems the first time I play them, that way I know what to look for and how to counter it when I GM. (Plus I just really like to bust my Pathfinder GM's balls).

In combat, the oft-cited counter to mages are drones. Drones force the mages to use higher-drain spells, and overcome object resistance.

The other combat weakness mages have are the lack of initiative boosting, which they get around via sustaining foci and increased reflexes, or drugs. Wards can force mages that rely on sustaining foci to recast their spells. Even with high drain resistance pools, eventually they're gonna get tagged with some drain. Drugs have their own risks.

For stealth, corporations have lived with magic as a reality for decades now in the timeline. Glowmoss, ultrasound, radar, etc. should be prevalent, as should watcher spirits. Watcher spirits looking for active magic should be everywhere. They're cheap, and somewhat effective. But mostly they're cheap, and should be numerous. Spirits hanging around in the astral to sound the alarm are also not overly expensive. A simple F3 spirit keeping an eye out for astral forms (and IIRC, active spells count?) would be a huge hindrance to any mage.

Also, motion detectors are not defeated by invisibility (improved or otherwise), as they rely on ultrasound (actually, they can rely on a number of things, from magnetic fields, to active sonics/ultrasonics, to ambient vibrations, etc.).

For scouting, astral recon is indeed effective, but limited on what information can be gleamed. It's all emotive; even the furniture are just shadows. And anyone lingering around on the astral is bound to draw the attention of dual-natured creatures, spirits, or watchers (see above). With the speed of movement on the astral, a response to someone on the astral poking around can be very rapid.

You realize that Watchers have an amazing two dice spotting anything, yeah?

Sort of run into the same problem here as you do with the Background Count thing.

While Background Count "hinders" Mages, it "royally screws" adepts (who are already in a shaky position).

Those Force 3 Spirits are something that will "hinder" Mages and put a pretty serious damper on pretty much anyone else, throw in higher Force Spirits and you can count on a team needing a Mage to accomplish the job, you aren't limiting the Mage you're making him the star of the show. All of these anti-magical intrusion measures (ultrasound etc) that throw a monkey wrench in magical infiltration pretty much make mundane infiltration skills only good for laying ambush and not actual infiltration.

If those Wards aren't somehow directly in the middle of a gunfight, then it doesn't particularly matter that the Mage needs to spend 12 seconds after crossing one to rebuff. It is just more time that everyone else at the table gets to watch the Mage do Mage things while pretending there is a consequence.

This has been a growing problem in Shadowrun since I started playing the game in 2nd Ed. The game seems to have fallen back on "Geek the Mage first" rhetoric like it is some sort of balancing factor, but that very statement already proclaims the Mage as the most deadly and versatile member of a team. It also seems to imply that killing the Mage should be easy, when Mages have access to all of the same Body Armor and protection measures as everyone else on the team and the capacity to make up for the lack of implanted armor with an Armor spell.

This is all allegedly countered by drain, which has always tread on the side of the line which allows the Mage to perform their job practically consequence free. All of the real consequences of being a mage were linked to arbitrary Essence and Magic loss from wound recovery and other sources. Most of that has been stripped out of the system. Perhaps rightfully so, they were always kind of bummer mechanics.

Well at least they limited what the Mage can target from Astral space and I don't have to deal with so many Astral "bombing runs" anymore.

+3 Dice for actively Looking, at a minimuim. There are other bonus and malus you can apply, of course.
And the fact that they do not even have to roll for the obvious.

POTENTIALLY most versatile. Not necessarily the most versatile. You do have to buy those spells, after all.

As for the higher Force spirits (Anything less than Force 7 or so), they are just as vulnerable to the Street Sam as they are to the Mage, once manifested.

While a Mage can be powerful, so can the others, if the GM allows such things in his game.

Except those spirits patrolling are only looking for ASTRAL threats. They shouldn't, by any sane corp, be counted on for physical security. The time it would take to tell the spirits not to harrass any security guards, late-night workers, janitors, etc. every time they're summoned is way too onerous.

Likewise with the watchers.

What it basically causes is that if a mage uses a spell, he's effectively pulling an alarm.



Except every time they have to recast it, is another period where they face potential drain. And nevermind the many types of other wards available in Street Magic, such as the alarm ward, that a sustaining focus would gladly set off.



Drain is pretty effective. A mage with a drain resistance pool of 14 (which I'd argue is pretty good), facing a DV of 4 has about a 26% chance of taking some damage. Drop their pool to 12, and they've got a 40% chance of taking some damage. Mages are good in bursts, but continued spell casting will result in drain adding up, unless they're very, very lucky.

Improved Invis is DV 1/2 +1. A 3 threshold beats cameras.

I would think a 4 (or potentially a 5 or 6) would be required to beat a camera (highly processed goods, electronics, etc.)

Regardless, DV 3 with a pool of 14 (which again is a very large drain resistance pool), you're still looking at a 10% chance of taking some damage. With a pool of 10 (a "decent" starting pool) it's 30%.

Sensors are at 3. Drones are at 5. You keep saying "Some" damage. It makes for a stronger argument, but when most characters won't suffer any side effects at all until their 3rd point, that 10% might as well not exist. I agree a pool of 10 is more in line with reality. By my count that's two and a half hits. Let's just make that point of damage a given. Now the mage is invisible to most, requiring a hard check to detect him, and he has a point of stun damage, which won't mean anything unless he takes two more.

Honestly, if the only effect of being completely invisible was that I might be a bit more tired, but that weariness wouldn't possibly effect my actions or thoughts, why *wouldn't* I just walk around with full invis all day? It's overpowered.

Personally, I think a way to limit magicians would be to split conjuring spirits and casting spells into two different qualities, so one can't be both a spellslinger and a summoner. I just wish that it did not go contrary to the fluff throughout editions.

Is not WUXING quite big into Geomancy? Isn't there main HQ Tower in Hong Kong Aspected to thier Wuxing tradition? And I thnk they have a TON of Geomancers on staff, so feasibly all of their major offices would be aspected domains for Wuxing practionioners.
Yes?

When you take the one power/ability (in this case, Improved Invisibility), and compare it against the one thing it's designed to counter (in this case, cameras/visual detection), then yes, of course it's powerful. That's what it's supposed to do. And no, you're not getting to cast it without any costs.

1) Sustained spell. -2 to all further actions. (without getting into the pros and cons of sustaining foci)
2) On the astral, you're surrounded by a nice bright aura.

But all that's beside the point.

Yes, Improved Invisibility is a hard counter to your basic camera. But what about the microphones attached to said camera? Stealth spell! That's another casting. You got by the first one. Oh, there's a ward on that door? Drop your spells, and recast them. Another chance for drain. Uh oh, a dog over there? Can't sneak past it. Stunbolt? Another chance at drain. Etc. etc. An unlucky couple of rolls, and you're suffering wound modifiers. Nevermind that each spell you cast is a glowing beacon to any astral observers, effectively advertising "Active Mage Over Here!".

All those are things a capable, non-magic character can defeat: infiltration, ruthenium polymers, gel rounds on a silenced weapon. But without the chance for drain.

I'm not arguing that mages aren't powerful. They are; we haven't even touched on spirits. And when they've had a fair bit of karma, watch out.

And they are definitely flexible. But there is a cost to it.

I'm arguing that there are counters for them. Easy ones, actually. Namely watchers and patrolling spirits, wards (of all flavors), and on-call mages. A watcher or spirit detects a rogue mage, they alert their controller, and an on-call mage arrives on the astral to provide counterspelling (while manifested) to on-site security, or chase off errant astral scouts. This way one group of mages can cover multiple sites, much like a single group of spyders can defend multiple sites.

In many ways, magic/astral defense is very similar to matrix security: it has to operate in parallel to physical security, and handle a specialized attackers/strategies. A hacker running amok in a building's facilities, without specialized defenses (compartmentalized facilities, on-call spyders, layered protections, honey pots, dead ends, etc.) can trivialize a run just as much as a mage without similar precautions.

It's difficult to consider these aspects, though, as they don't exist in the real world. But in the game, the corps have had decades to adopt their strategies. Even relatively low-level structures would have some basic defenses (namely wards, watchers, and spirits).

(Oh, and I was not using the phrase "some damage" to bias any readers to thinking it was worse than it is. I was being precise; I didn't bother calculating the odds for 1, 2, or 3 damage from that drain value [about 2% for 3 stun, about 9% for 2 stun, and about 19% for 1 stun with a dice pool of 10 vs. DV 3]. I presumed that those reading would realize that the damage was most likely to be 1, with some chance at 2 or even 3 drain damage.)

I feel this thread needs this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXX8URSUWm0

And that someone needs to do the same thing for ShadowRun

Something similar.

A mage with improved invisibility and other basic spells is paper.
Ultrasonic based sensors, drones, and intelligent applications of technology are scissors.
Street sams, faces, infiltration specialists are rock.
A hacker is like a screw driver.
A spirit is like an acetylene torch.
Crafty players with access to biofiber are a complete lack of oxygen.

Paper beats rock, unless rock gets the drop on it and goes full auto it and then paper gets holes blow in it just like everything else.
Scissors trump most of papers spells and then paper summons its acetylene torch and the scissors get melted.
Scissors also beat rock, unless rock gets the drop on them and goes full auto. Then scissors still beats rock, it just takes whatever the local response time is before it happens.
The screwdriver takes the scissors apart, but is easily broken by rock and gets its ass handed to it by paper (especially if paper is wielding it's acetylene torch).
The complete lack of oxygen puts out the torch and then the paper stops feeling so smug about its torch and runs like hell.

I tried, Draco18s.

Spirit Bane (Watcher Spirits)! Best 10 BP I ever got!

Awesome

Sorry, but that's hardly a balancing argument. Self-regulation turned out to work so well in all areas we tried it in, especially economics... (pardon the sarcasm; sore subject). If a system needs self-regulation by players, it's broken. Plain and simple.


"Just as" would imply equal opportunity. That is not the case. While APDS and S'n'S even the playing field a little, there is still a HUGE difference between a stunbolt and an AK when it comes to killing a spirit. Especially, if the Force starts exceeding that level 7 Threshold


While others can be "powerful as well", Mages still overshadow their teams on a regular basis. The OPs question was how to limit them, if they do. "Others can be powerful as well" is hardly an argument, when they apparently aren't. That said, I can stop non-magical intrusion attemps relatively cheap. When I need to add magical security, the bill starts to skyrocket and as many other posters before me pinted out, what geeks the mage, ususally geeks everyone else in the team as well.

While watchers are as dumb as a bread crumb, spirits have the sentience power. "Protect the facility from any hostile intrusion attemps" is perfectly valid command using up a single service from the summoned spirit, forcing the spirit to use any and all powers nescessery to fulfill that command. If harrassing security guards is nescessary to achiev that goal, he will do it (and the corps won't give a rat's ass about it) but it hardly ever should be nescessary.

As far as the drain argument is concerned, any mage worth his salt will get a pain editor anyway, so the point of drain is moot. And if they really want to piss off their GM, they add rating 7 damage compensators to fill the rest of the esence point. It would take a LOT of drain damage to take that mage out. A LOT!


Or by a single force 8 Spirit with concealment. But without the drain.


Problem is: that also affects adepts in much the same way and they aren't the problem.

The point is, everyhting to throw at the mage (espect BC and Wards) will fuck up the mundane and adept part even harder.
A spirit?

The mage can at least see it on the astral plane. The mage can bypass his immunity with a thought.
Sensors? The mage can bypass them with a spell, the rest CAN'T.

Unless you start just ignoring it and let an infiltrate roll be as hard in a dense jungle as it is on a parking loot surrounded with cameras, the infiltrator will be fucked.
Unless you just rule, that spirits only keep lookout for mages. Unless you let the whole astral response be "only responsible for mages"....

But I guess this is the point, at which you should ask yourself, what the fuck you are doing...
Because countering in game inbalance with GM-Fiat is as bad as it gets..