My group and I are on probably our 3rd shadowrun 4th Edition campaign(the last ones only lasting between 2-5 sessions) and coming up on the 4th session of this campaign. We have completed 2 runs. We have been using a lot more matrix and astral stuff. The GM played a hacker the first campaign we did, and now we have a rigger and I'm half hacker. So we have a lot of checks and balances in the matrix, but none of us really know the rules for magic, just the one player who is using it.

The first run we did with him in it the Spirit took about half the time and killed about half the people. Sure, binding it almost makes him passout. Rebinding it seems to suck to. But he has these spirits bound and rampaging through the run(given one command of kill everyone in X area, so he still had like 2), killing entire squads. This guy doesn't know anything about breaking(optimizing) this system either, he's playing a fairly "whatever" shaman and rolling between 8-14 dice. The run had a ward in each building and 2 on-sight mages. Each mage was able to take one shot at the fire spirit before getting demolished . And while his spirits doing all this crap he's rolling for other spells and junk, shouldn't he have to sustain it or something?

Now we know the GM isn't THAT read on either the Matrix or Magic. What are some extended astral security measures? Should the mages be banishing quicker? I haven't even cracked street magic, so I'm most likely way underread.

EDIT: SORRY! It's 4th Edition Magic.

3rd edition are very powerful, as you get magic 6 for free. Summoning spirits and having them kill your enemies works too. You can only control equal to your charisma and only get a few services, but that would do what you are describing. And when pulling up a new one doesn't take long.

The main limit is that high force spirits can be very expensive to summon if you roll poorly, and low force spirits are not invulnerable to small arms like high force spirits are.

The defending mage should still have been able to easily blow the spirit away with an overcast stunbolt, or multiples with an overcast stunball. And yes, they WILL overcast and risk physical damage compared to going HtH with a fire spirit. Most combat mages also have weapon focuses and some ability to use them.

Spirits are kinda nutso. They're very binary in how they work. Low force spirits are almost useless for anything other than utility, while high force spirits are just walking (flying, actually) monstrosities. And you either summon them with little to no problems, or you practically wipe yourself out.

Most "solutions" seem to revolve around having stronger astral security to deal with player summoned spirits, or being very draconian about spirit limitations - such as having them fulfill commands a little too literally, or having them be recalcitrant and willfully resist or resent being summoned. (Since we're talking about a shaman, here, the second one actually makes sense from a lore standpoint - you're asking powerful spirits for favors, and they're gonna ask you a few in return.) Still, it's a difficult thing to balance easily.

Perhaps the simplest solution is to just throw a third mage at the spirit, and a fourth and fifth and so on, until it feels like a reasonable level of resistance has been met. Barring that, try sending drones at the player mage - it's a lot harder to take out non-organics with magic, and even a spirit will have to put itself on the physical plane to cast physical spells at a drone.

Still, I bet other folks will have way better answers.

~Umidori

I would advise against an armsrace, especially with mages. They are supposed to be rare. So not every site should have lots of them around. What you should do however is play the opposition smart.
1) Give your guards SnS. They work like a charm against spirits of Force 6 or lower. One net hit hurts them. And knocking intruders unconscious instead of killing them might have its own benefits.
2) Have guards patrol in teams. Have them always delay their actions. A spirit needs a complex action to materializes so the guards should get a shot in before the spirit can squash them.

BTW Binding is unnecessary. The mage could just as well order the spirit to kill the guards with an unbound spirit. The only drawback is that, should the spirit wander off too far (IIRC 10m*Force) the mage loses the remaining services.

Wait what are the exact rules for Materialization? I see that it is a power on SR 296. How long can they materialize for? Like there were 3 squads this thing fought and was just flying over to each one and using firebreath(with line of sight casting range?!?!) every time in combat. Isn't the spirit using firebreath a service or something?

The closest thing to such a notion is the Unruly Bound Spirits optional rule. It's intended for exactly this problem and imposes a -2 DP modifier on the summoner as per sustaining spells. It shouldn't be applied generally though - just for magicians who mistreat their spirits (such as repeatedly sending them to fight his battles for him) and perhaps for all high force spirits (e.g. higher than the magician's Magic).

It's a murky topic, but generally no. 'Kill them' is one service and if the spirit decides to use a particular power then that's its choice to make. This is important - magicians do not remote control their spirits like they are drones. Once given an order the GM, not the player, should play the spirit accordingly and there should be no unbidden coordination with the rest of the team's efforts.

Now 'Use power X on them' is a different matter, eliciting either one use of the power or repeated use of the same power, depending on how the GM decides the spirit interprets the instruction.

It shouldn't come up too often, but background count is a bitch for spirits.

There's also fighting fire with fire - spirits are not a rare security measure, from patrol duties to bodyguarding.

We use a house rule for Summoning, that you cannot summon spirits with Force above your own Magic Rating.

That keeps them in reasonable levels. It is far too easy to summon higher Force spirits.

Bye
Thanee

They can remain materialized indefinitely, but then they likely lose the element of surprise. Going from the astral plane to the physical is a Complex action, so between the spirit materializing and actually doing stuff, the opposition should have an action phase to oppose the spirit, including calling for backup. Addtionally, unless I'm mistaken surprise happens during the pass when the spirit materializes, so in the pass when it does something they should no longer be surprised.
Sneaking up on the guards will take time, so that maybe reinforcemnts will be there before the first team is eliminated.

The others already said it "kill everyone" in the building is only one service, but this may not always be an option. Maybe the runners need to extract someone, maybe there are innocent bystanders, maybe there are mages not related to the run etc.

1) Limit access to high force spirits.
2) Limit power of spirits

For example: Spirits of force higher than 6 always spend edge to resist binding or summoning. Spirits only have an Edge of Force/2 (round up).

Spirit's edge is rarely an issue as the summoner cannot force a spirit to spend edge.

As a new player number 1... stay as far away from possession rules as you can... only use them as a GM threat occasionally.

2. remember spirits are NPC's... they should NOT be played by the mage who summoned them no more than you'd have a face 'play' his street sam contact who he brought in for some extra muscle.
2a. wish wording... he ordered the spirit to kill EVERYONE in the building... start with the mage and his allies :).
2b. this will make them burn through services even faster to countermand and reword orders.
2c. a spirit WILL return to the astral/wherever AFTER it completes a service. (this is in the main rulebook...).
2d. spirits automatically know if a mage mistreats his spirits...

3. spirits have edge and WILL use it to resist summoning... players CANNOT tap this edge or force the spirit to spend it... the spirit will only spend it for it's own ends.
3a... around here summoning something with a force GREATER than your magic is automatic edge to resist... (makes it possible but VERY VERY painful to get high force spirits... and practically suicidal to try and bind them). This is a house rule.

4. changes in initiative only take place at the start of a new combat turn (not initiative pass).
4a. this is dicey... but if a spirit materializes in round 1... it may not be able to act in the second pass. Most people play that it went from 3 to 2 and still give it the second action.
4b. the best time for a spirit to materialize is almost always using it's 3rd astral pass... (no grey area... uses it's last action astral to materialize... 4th pass a few if any people go... first pass next combat turn things are back to order).

5. spirits are again NPC's and don't like being treated like slaves... in Jet set there's a story of a spirit ordered to keep all drinks in a room chilled.
5a. see wish wording... spirit resorted to evaporating all drinks BEFORE they entered the room and other obnoxious tricks until it was finally released after a short time.

Another house rule which is used locally here by another GM is spirits are limited to 6 ranks in a skill. This helps to keep the higher force ones sane. This was a direct result of a force 9 guardian with the 'automatics' skill handed an AK-97 and still having 20+ dice.... see above... not my fault guns are so much better at dealing damage than anything else in the game! (I've toyed with the idea of force/2 ranks instead... seems to scale better).

Spirits tend to be the most broken aspect of magic IMO.


6. in terms of spells... spells aren't so bad... generally you'll do a lot more damage with guns than a mage will with spells. Though when the hyper-armored troll tank comes out to play... a good manabolt is your best friend.
7. Make sure NPC's get their bonus dice to resist from cover and the mage suffers appropriate visibility penalties for casting.

8. remember rent-a-cops aren't there as the primary security... they're there as a tripwire. If they go down, alarms go off... their job isn't to fight intruders so much as it is to report on them and delay them until bigger guns arrive.
8a. see above about visibility... flash paks and smoke grenades are a NPC's best friends when they're just trying to not get gunned down...

9. drones are your friend... drones have object resistance :)... they also tend to carry heavy weapons...

Kill everyone might be an over broad service for most spirits unless they really like you. I generally work with fighting in a single combat counts as a service, you have to earn some loyalty before they'll do more than that for a service.

As noted, stick-n-shock is strong agienst spirits, and spirits do take some time to get ready. Unless your spirit was following you, here's how it goes usually.

Pass 1, magician used Simple action to call a spirit on standby and give an order. Spirit comes to magician
Pass 2, Spirit materializes

Next round, spirit acts.

Since a lot of shadowrun combats are decided in the first round, that can be a long time, and having a spirit follow you, even astrally, will make you stick out like a sore thumb to any astral security, even watchers.

Not watchers by RAW. With 2 dice they will not notice, especially if they are distracted (-2). Even if they are actively looking (+3) for that combination it is unlikely that they will identify it correctly.

How well does a watcher need to "identify" a trespassing spirit? It's not going to confuse it for a pot plant.

While it may be obvious that the spirit is not a potted plant or any other living creature (the rules are a bit vague on that one), anyone needs one hit to ascertain whether a subject is mundane or awakened. A spirit that has not been identified as awakened, should not register, or the watcher's summoner would get a lot of false positives. To identify the type of spirit anyone need two hits. So unless the watcher patrols in an area where no spirits at all are allowed, again you will probably get a lot of false positives.

I could be wrong, but I would think noticing an astrally active creature (spirits, dual-natured beings, astrally projecting mage, etc) is not the same thing as noticing mundane vs. awakened.

The question is can you differentiate between the vibrant auras of living creatures and astral forms without a roll. Can you differentiate between different astral forms of the same type without a roll? The former is not clear, the latter is a definite no.

I agree. For my own opinion, I would say that for watchers, who are creatures of the astral, being able to tell the difference between auras on the astral (living things) and actual beings that actually exist on the astral (spirits, dual-natured, etc) is something that doesn't need a roll. So telling the difference between mundane and awakened is not the subject of discussion.

I've found the RAW for the first issue:

SR4a p.191 AURAS AND ASTRAL FORMS:
"Astral forms are more colourful and brighter than auras, as they are astrally 'real'."

SR4a p.191 ASTRAL PERCEPTION:
"Without attempting to read an aura, a magician can still get an impression of what type of aura it is (spell, spirit, living creature, etc.)."
(Assuming it's not really meant to be limited to just magicians).

You're quite right that a roll is required to recognise an aura/astral form. However, I would think it a trivial exercise to concoct a security protocol whereby in the event a watcher comes across an authorised astral form then said astral form will identify itself in a pre-determined manner.

I've run plenty of games over the years and I've never had issues with spirits in my games. Of course, I've also had a very small handful of characters that summon. I've even had a Possession mage and he didn't "break the game" any at all - in fact, he helped keep some PCs alive by possessing them when they dropped for extraction to reach the streetdocs.

A lot of this has been mentioned upthread, but the few things that help balance spirits specfically (and magic generally) are: backround count, wards, patrolling spirits, stick-n-shock, enemy mages. One of my favorite things is a mage (magician/mystic adept) using Control Thoughts or similar magic on an enemy spirit and telling it to "kill your summoner." That'll chew through favors real quickly.

@Neraph
Whats your definition of game breaking?

"I win" buttons. So far, magic has been kept in check (either through my players' own actions or my magical counters I don't know) and is a non-issue. The most problematic magic-based characters I've had was a fistfighter adept with the Sonic Aura Power, a mundane 7-Edge sniper, and a bio-ninja stealth character. Fighting clever isn't a game-breaker, it's simply superior tactics. People complaining about magic just reminds me of novice Go players complaining about losing to someone who's been at it for a few years.

Wait.... Sonic (Read "Elemental") Aura Power?

~Umidori

Yup it will make noises like the 70s Batman series

No, I mean... I know about the Elemental Strike adept power... but no aura powers for adepts.

Unless this is another case of my not having/using the crazy books like War! ...?

~Umidori

If it is a regular adept you are right of course. A mystic adept could pull this off.

Zipploxx.

Magic is powerful.

What happens when something powerful occurs? There is the perfectly natural reaction of the witnesses. "Somebody doing something! Help!"

You witnessed a player doing something powerful in your game. What did you do? You went to the larger community for help.

The facility NPC guards see something powerful, what will they do? They will go out for help.

No matter how powerful you think that puny mage on your team is, there is always both more opponents and more powerful opponents out there. There is always something more powerful out there.

In practical terms, it is is relatively cheap for a security force to sub contract out a set of on call spirits supplied by a mage somewhere else. The NPC guards hit the panic button, and within a turn a spirit will arrive to counteract your mages spirit.

Next step the astral security mage arrives, not to fight, but to act as an astral witness and to provide a lock on for later astral tracking down of your teams mage astral signature.

Sure, your mage walked all over that facility, but there will now be teams of astral security mages, packs of overwatch drones, flights of security force helicoptors full of heavy gunnery out hunting your mage.

Have fun.

Geeking Mages is heavy industry and a career for millions of people.

Mages are powerful and rare, bullets cost 2 nuyen each and are plentiful.

Kinda unusual for a fist-adept though, having to split the magic score and all.

It could work I suppose. Elemental Aura is a beastly sort of spell for a melee character: +1DV per spellcasting hit at half armor with elemental effects, plus anyone who actually hits you back has to resist (Spell Force) damage. It has a high drain though, F/2 + 3, and if you're sustaining it yourself that's 2 dice less for the punchy-punchy. Probably better to have a dedicated spellcaster in your team to keep it up on you instead, though. And it's definitely not subtle, physically or astrally.

Personally if I want to focus more on the physical combat, I tend to avoid mystic adepts because it gets BP/karma expensive to pay for the magic enough to split between powers and spells, then lose some of it for an initiative booster, and then buy the skills to actually cast anything worthwhile. Plus most spells worth using to enhance your physical combat are, again, sustained, which hinders your physical combat. And you gotta take the time to cast them, and resist the drain, and you light up like an astral christmas tree.

~Umidori

One of my current players asked me to draw up a Jedi-wannabe type for him, which from his description had to be mystic adept. But very little of what he wanted required spellcasting, so to save on costs I gave him the (much deplored) Aspected quality twice, once for spellcasting and once for manipulation magic, using the optional +2/-6 rule. Threw in a manipulation specialisation and his Magic (Spellcasting) of 1 and Spellcasting skill of 1 now gives him a DP of 8 for telepathy and telekinesis magic. And that's for -4 BP all told. Mentor Spirit and focus could get it even higher of course, but he didn't go for it.

Such things can't exist in an complex system, unless rules were screwed up badly (meaning not overpowered but really broken).
There is just one such glitch in SR, and that would be the free spirit with unlimited Karma supply...

Nothing in it self will make you "win". The best pools in shooting won't help, if the object is to brew coffee...

Especially not if the resourced brought against you are unlimited...

So a usefull definition of broken is:
"An option to do achieve a goal much easier and/or better than every other possible solution"
For example, take computer games.
Lets take, for example StarCraft 2.

The "reaper" would be broken if, he had 10 more HP, 2 more damage and 20% more range.
Why? It still could not do much against a terran cruiser or other heavy units?
Yes, but at the time you get them and with the right tactics they would be devastating.

On the other hand, an I win button does not need to be broken. A Unit which would be nearly impossible to get but also nearly impossible to defeat would not be broken...

You're being pedantic, Irion.

When in doubt, go with the rule of fun. If it's fun, let it slide. If it isn't fun, or if it relies on ruining someone elses fun to be fun, then nix it.

Whether you wanna call it "broken", an "I Win Button", "imbalanced", or just plain "overpowered", any option with a poor ratio of fun to anti-fun needs to be addressed. And remember that your mileage may vary - just like how some people prefer Pink Mohawk to Black Trenchcoat, some people are going to be more or less willing to tolerate anti-fun when it crops up. One person's acceptable trade-off is another person's game-breaking idiotic rule structure. It's open to interpretation.

You might be fine with a feature that simply drives someone else nuts. That's cool if you are. But the appropriate response isn't to dismiss their frustrations, or even to tell them that they can overcome the anti-fun problem by doing "Other Thing". It might work wonders, but it also might not be what they personally wanted or expected from their gaming. Options are a good thing. People don't like having only one choice for dealing with a problem - even moreso when it's a problem that blindsides them, something that they weren't expecting to even be a problem.

When people talk about something being "broken", or whatever word you want to use, they really only mean one thing - "I find X to be unfun." And I can't think of a more legitimate complaint for an aspect of a game system.

~Umidori

The "I Win" button is only a problem when it isn't your finger pressing it.

Elemental Strike or whatever, the Adept Power from Street Magic. Done sonic it is simply broken (and yes, I just called something broken).



Also, note that I said I haven't seen them.

Not more broken than Elemental Strike [Electricity]. While the target gets no armor vs sonic damage (there are ways to get protection though), electricity always imposes a -2 on the target and can incapacitate it.

Yes, but Sound Dampers are only available to cyberears, and mages with Silence would have been a direct response to the character's choice. A good GM doesn't need to custom-tailor enemies like that (unless they earn it through in-game enemies). I countered the particular player by adding more drones (logical) and using superior tactics (punchy-punchy character can't hit the people overlooking the alley from a balcony now, can he?).

Besides, Electricity is easily resisted with Nonconductivity.

@Dakka

Sonic damage actually is far worse than Electricity.

With Electricity, the victim gets to roll Body + Willpower + Half Impact. If they hit the threshold of 3, they don't get Incapacitated, but they suffer a -2 dice pool modifier. If they don't reach the threshold and do get Incapacitated, they cannot take action for 2 + Attack Net Hits Combat Turns.

With Sonic, if you deal more damage than the target has Willpower, they instantly suffer Nausea, and are deafened for 10 minutes.


So instead of an automatic -2 dice with a low threshold test to resist Incapacitation with a fair amount of dice, you get automatic double wound modifiers (ranging from -2 to -6) and automatically get Incapacitated if the DV exceeds your willpower. And you don't get any armor to resist the damage itself.

Stick that on a fist-adept throwing out punches that range in damage from a shotgun blast to an assault canon round, and it literally becomes impossible to resist being taken out of the fight for three entire Combat Turns if you get struck. And even if you get back into the fight after that, you've still taken a fair bit of stun, and you're deaf and suffer double wound modifiers for another 9 minutes and 51 seconds.

~Umidori

Woops forgot about the nausea. You are right, that is powerful, too powerful maybe. Drones however are absolutely immune against it.

At which point the fist-adept uses their Killing Hands power (a pre-requisite for Elemental Strke) to deal Physical Damage punches for typically anywhere from 7 to 13 base damage. Or if they took the Elemental Strike power twice, they just witch to a different element, like Electricity - the original Bane of Drones.

The superior tactics Neraph employed are probably the best counter - after all, the reason ranged weapons exist is so you don't get punched or stabbed at melee.

~Umidori

It is a grey area whether that works. The elemental effect tells us that it is stun damage, killing hands says you can do physicla damage. Whichever gets applied first is irrelevant. I'd say if you teke the elemental effect you get all of the elemental effect, unless explicitly mentioned differently (Lightnining bolt). BTW where did you get the 7 to 13 base damage. This is not a function of that power. Investing additional adept powers into that you could of course get there. It sitll only allowes to squish anything in melee range.

My point exactly.

Sorry, wasn't clear, was assuming typical sorts of punch values for fist-adepts. Critical Strike plus ork or troll level strength and martial arts make you punch like a beast.

And for the Killing Hands, I meant turn off your Elemental Strike and just punch for straight physical, no element.

~Umidori

Does not work all that well against a drone that the Melee-adept cannot reach, though. Whether it is flying or on the ground.

Kinda mentioned that in the post before my last one...

~Umidori

Indeed you did... My Apologies...
I like a good Melee Adept, but I prefer a Good Throwing Adept more.

Throwing is probably superior in most cases, except for Astral stuff like a non-manifested spirit. Then you're right back to the problem of being unable to effectively reach your enemy while they can rain pain down on you. At least with spririt punching you can move into melee range for both physical and astral.

~Umi

I would argue the Astral Closing of Distance for a Melee Adept. Since he is constrained to gravity effects, and a Spirit or Astral projecting Mage is not, he has the same issues either way, astrally. He is the victim in that regard, and is likely never going to gain an upper hand, unless he can constrain the encounter to something within arm's reach.

As I understand the RAW, though, dual natured non-projecting characters are fully capable of engaging in astral combat against fully astral forms with nothing ever being said about range or positioning.

...although , they're also fully capable of Astrally Tracking with the same Extended Test Interval as a fully astral tracker... so...

*shrug*

~Umi

Astral combat is treated as melee physical attacks. And also, "there are no known ranged weapons which function in astral space". The *ONLY* way to affect something outside your reach in astral is to use a mana spell. No weapons work. Also astral combat is 'trained only' (great way to screw over munchkin mages who think they can ignore it... since they'll always just attack with spells... spirit at astral speed gets in his face and gores him... he can't defend since he can't default on the astral combat test). Adepts have the same problem... attacking astral only forms they need to use willpower + astral combat.

So yes, only spirits which effectively have perfect flight while materialized and ludicrous astral speeds can engage pretty much anything in astral combat. Otherwise an astrally projecting mage, or a spirit of man with innate spell stunbolt/manabolt can pretty much ruin the day of any ground bound dual-natured entity since there's little they can do to attack back except break LOS from the caster (such as underground or a building so the astral form has to come within reach to see the target).

This is also the reason the first thing munchkins do when playing a ghoul is install cybereyes... it eliminates their 1 point of magic making them forever more mundane and forever eliminating the dual-natured drawback. It also restores normal sight to them. (and avoids needing to learn assensing & astral combat... two trained only skills)

The only catch is that something which has the "dual natured" power (not which is dual-natured... since it's possible to do so by percieving without having the power) gains a special out... it may always use it's physical stats along with any 'natural weapon' powers weapons and it's unarmed combat skill to defend or attack astrally as well as physically. This is to prevent things like dual-natured grizzlies from getting completely gimped since they're able to use their claws/bite to pretty much rip things apart.

Here's another one most people don't realize... materializing spirits aren't given the 'dual natured' power. They become 'dual natured' in the same sense than an astrally perceiving character is dual natured. The power gives them access to the material plane in a similar manner to how perception gives an adept access to the astral. It's not the same as the critter power. (it's a VERY VERY bad habit of the authors to give critter powers different abilities with the same name as other powers... such as mystic armor... does radically different things as player spell, player adept power, critter power). So a GM could stretch the rules to slap a spirit with a -2 penalty to any physical interactions with the real world in the same manner as a mage trying to use a pistol or punch someone while astrally perceiving.

In fact, only some later books hint that spirits gain any 'normal' senses at all when they materialize and that is only in the bit for making PC free spirits. I personally have always just gone with.. they can interact with the material plane, but can still only assense unless they have 'low light vision' or something similar through an enhanced senses critter power.

You should put some of this in the Broken Rules thread. Also, don't forget that Materialization, Possession, and Inhabitation are all Physical powers. I'll let you figure out what that means.