Hey guys, I've been playing in my second ever game of Shadowrun recently (SR4A), and my first playing a Mage. My first doesn't really count because it was only a couple of session 18 months ago. We've been playing for a couple of months and we're at a little over 40 karma right now.

I'm playing a Dwarf Zoroastrian Mage, mostly doing combat with a couple of utility spells (clairvoyance, thought control and levitation mostly). It's only a 3 person team and the rest of the team is a PhysAd Hacker and a Cybered face (who's a bit of a generalist). I'm the only heavy hitter on the team combat-wise, so I've been concentrating on that quite a bit.

My mage rolls 17 dice for combat and manipulation spells, 15 dice for others. He rolls 13 dice for spirit summoning, 15 for man and guardian (though I don't summon guardian spirits all that often). he rolls 11 dice for drain at base, but I've been investing in that and am now using a force 5 and 6 sustaining focus to sustain Increase [Attribute] spells on myself for a total of 19 drain dice. I also have a force 3 sustaining focus for Increase Reflexes, and a Force 4 Power Focus.

Mostly at the moment my strategy revolves around summoning Force 5 spirits of man which I mostly use for assensing (as I'm terrible at it but use it quite a bit for scoping out buildings etc). In combat (which we rarely get into more than once per run) I've found that the most efficient way to go is just to drop force 10 Stunbolts and Stunballs on everyone depending on group sizes and how close they are (I'm Magic 5).

So far we haven't faced a lot of mages but I feel like I take people out a little too easily, given a force 10 Stunball can knock out most of a gang without too much trouble (and if I'm worried I just use one net hit and some edge on the drain roll, which will take out most people quite easily). Am I doing something wrong here or is this just the normal way it goes?

My other question is what my best way is to go in terms of progression. So far I've bought a couple of spells, and bonded a Force 5 and Force 6 sustaining focus, as I quickly realized the biggest limitation wasn't my casting dice, it's my drain dice. My plan from here is to up my magic a point (to 6), then initiate, taking the centering metamagic and then take a centering focus. Am I focusing on drain too much? is there some other direction I should be looking to spend my Karma?

My last question is related to all of this, as obviously I'm lit up like a christmas tree on the Astral. Is there some way of hiding active sustained spells on myself, similarly to how the masking metamagic works? Probably not but maybe I missed something.

Any general advice would also be appreciated.

1) Good job on using Increase Attribute for your drain stats. That's usually one of my first suggestions. I tend to just eat the sustaining penalty and use Psyche to mitigate it instead of overusing expensive (karma and ) foci.

2) Remember that your Sustaining Focus for Increase Reflexes will only let you go up to 3 IP, as the spell is a Threshold Test spell and its successes are limited by Force.

3) Direct Combat Spells are far superior to Indirect without House-Ruling. My personal suggestion is -2 Drain to all Indirect, +4 Drain to all Direct. Otherwise, Stunball is the workhorse of mages everywhere. If you want the game to be a little more difficult, talk to your GM about this House-Rule and see if he's okay with it.

4) For metamagics and Drain - you're doing it right. I would actually place the Initiation before raising the Magic rating, myself. With your Increase Attribute spells you should be at Augmented Max for your drain stats, which should actually be enough (19 for Dwarf), allowing you to take other metamagics. See below.

5) A couple of other Metamagics you could take is Masking (page 198, SR4A) and Extended Masking (page 60, Street Magic) to conceal your active foci/spells.

6) You can also look into Calling (page 174, Running Wild) to help enhance your Summoning possibilities. Also, my thread on Ally/Free Spirits and Angents/Drones may give you some ideas. I like having additional soldiers (drone soldier from Agents) who are capable of many things, and I love having a truly enchanted weapon/item (free Inhabitation spirit) able to aid me using its Powers (some ideas would be Guard and Concealment. Remember also that Free Spirits can do any service that a bound spirit can, which means that it may be able to help you sustain some of those spells).

It is the way it goes and therefore the reason why many consider direct combat spells overpowered (which, I also agree with).

The two you mentioned are the worst contenders, really, as they are way too easy to cast at such high Force Ratings.

My personal way to house rule this "problem" is to increase the Drain for overcasting spells like that.

Specifically, Force is only halved up to the Magic Rating and beyond that, the full Force is counted towards Drain; e.g. if you cast a Force 10 spell with Magic 5, only 5 of the 10 Force are halved (resulting in 2 DV) and the other 5 Force points are counted fully (resulting in another 5 DV), for a total of 7 DV (-1 for the Stun Bolt for a grand total of 6 DV or +1 for the Stun Ball for a grand total of 8 DV).

As a formula it can be condensed to F - M/2 (round up), which would replace the regular F/2 (round down).


For your questions...

Yes, your dice pools for spellcasting and summoning are quite impressive already, not much need to go much higher there.

Drain is, of course, the limiting factor for spellcasting and summoning, and the more Drain you can soak up, the more and higher Force spells you can cast.

As for the Foci, what you listed there is pretty high-end already. Most characters won't have that many foci with such high Ratings.

You should be aware, that you are closing in on the maximum of foci you can have there. You can only bond as many as your Magic Rating and you can only activate as many as your Logic Rating. Also, there are rules about Focus Addiction, which can (and probably should) occur, if a mage relies too much on foci.

Bye
Thanee

Thanks for the tips guys, that's really helpful. Regarding Direct Damage spells, I won't ask for a houserule yet as I'm really the only heavy hitter in the group, so I'm not ruining anyone else's fun and we as a group tend to avoid combat anyway (plus requesting a nerf goes against all my powergamer instincts).

Thankyou for the Masking/Extended Masking tip! That was exactly what I was looking for, though I'll have to initiate a number of times to cover a fair number of foci/spells. I'm thinking at the moment I'll look to leave off on upping magic for the moment, and just Initiate 3 times (Masking, Extended Masking and Centering). Being able to mask 3 spells/foci will give me some fairly solid options for B&E type missions. After that point I'll look at increasing magic and/or skills. I'll hold off on the Centering focus for the moment as you make a good point about Focus Addiction.

On another note, I've made the character in Chummer, and I found that when I put his armor together either I'm missing something or it's calculating encumbrance wrong.
Wearing An Armor Jacket, A Form-fitting body suit and a full Suite of PPP gear, my armor comes to 16/14, with a -2 to my my reaction/agility.

I have body 4, so I would've expected this to be significantly higher than that. If I removed the Vitals Protector from the PPP system, my armor goes to 15/13 and I don't have any encumbrance penalties. Am I missing something in the way that armor/encumbrance stacks?

Thanks again!
Chugga

any way i counted, it is too large considering your Body attribute
I would say wearing Lined Coat (6/4), FFBA (half-body) (4/1 (considered as 2/1 when conting penalties),PPP helmet (0/2) and
wearing part of PPP that gives u 0/1 would be better choice..

The penalty is -1 per every two points, or fraction thereof, that armor exceeds Body x 2. So 13 point of ballistic armor (for encumbrance purposes) would give you -3 to Agility and Reaction, and 13 points of impact armor (for encumbrance purposes) would give you another -3 to Agility and Reaction. You definitely want to be wearing less armor. You are better off, in some ways, sustaining a combat sense spell, giving you a better chance of dodging attacks completely.

Except that you are at a -2 for Sustaining unless you are putting it in a Focus.

"When determining encumbrance, however, add only half the rating (round down)..." Arsenal, page 48. Half-Body suit is 4/1, considered 2/0 for encumbrance, because half of 1 is 0.5, rounded down is 0.


If you get 5 successes you're at a net +3. If you take Psyche you're at a net +4.

thank u for clearing that.. when writing previous calgulation, i was at work and writing it from
memory..

Honestly I had to double-check that to make sure I wasn't doing it wrong for a few years.

Sure, does not change the fact that if you get 2 net, you are at +0 (or +1 with Psyche). Easily taken care of by a Sustaining Focus, or a Sustaining Spirit.

Or by dropping the spell and trying again next IP.

Yeah, becauase you not only want to Spam Spells all the time, but you WANT that Sustaining penalty because it is so very useful.

Working around Sustaining Penalties is easier than spending karma and cash for Sustaining foci or binding spirits. My nosferatu sustains 2 spells at all times and 4-5 while in combat. It's a non-issue if: 1) you have Psyche, and 2) you get enough successes on your Spellcasting Tests.

I don't understand people's fear of sustaining penalties.

Those of us Mortal Spellcasters with average dice pools for our skills in the 8-12 dice range, do not have the super soaker dice pools to overcome such piddling things as sustaining 5 spells in combat. Even with Psyche.

It is not a fear of the penalties. It is generally because I do not play a min-maxed super specialist.

@Neraph
For what kind of rolls do you apply the penalty?
Might be possible, that you are handeling not the way Tymeaus is doing it...

Yeah, RAW (and we all know Neraph loves RAW, right?) sustaining applies to everything that isn't Drain resistance or the test to not lose a sustained spell. Damage resistance, spell resistance, initiative, and so on all take the hit.

As does any Skill use at all...

Yup.

Which is why Sustaining Foci are so very, very useful...
Or Spirits sustaining Spell effects.
Not everyone can just suck up the penalties for sustaining multiple spells.

I simply disagree. If built properly a -3 Sustaining Penalty is not that much of an issue.

Your perrogative. But 4-5 spells, as you indicated earlier, is not a -3.
A -3 penalty is still pretty hefty (and if not on Psyche, is a -6), for someone with 5-6 dice in an activity.

I agree that if you build a character with DP's above 12 (for anything that might come up ever), and you use Psyche, it can be not that bad. But, same essential builds with Sustaining Foci or Spirits have NO penalty, which I see as better.

I was toning down my 5 to 3 for all you mortals.

My issue with Sustaining Foci in particular is the limit on Force; not that I dislike the limit on Force but that it gets exceedingly difficult to sustain those higher-Force spells without really shelling out nuyen and karma for a tricked-out focus. Spirits aren't as bad because of Binding, but even then it can get expensive quickly (especially if those Binding Tests don't work in your favor). That's what leads me to just do it myself - I can trust myself to work around the penalties, whereas I cannot necessarily rely on Sustaining Foci to do the jobs I require or favors to last as long as I require.

I get you...
Makes sense...

Really, depends on how you run it and what rules you use.

If your GM is "bad" on drugs, Psyche is not the way to go.
If your GM ask a lot of different test, espacially tests on attributes, even -3 can ruin your day.
If your GM likes to knock you on the head and ask for a lot of concentration tests and modifiers them, you might drop your spells quite often.
If your GM makes high force magic obvious (on the astral or even on the mundane plane), the force of spells might not be limited by the sustaining foci.
If your GM counts every sustained spell as a seperated modifier, some tricks won't work.
And so on.
How to sustain spells depends on your Group and your GM.

You probably want to watch out for a) reaching the maximum number of allowable Foci, and/or b) focus addiction. That latter's a bitch.

The metamagic you're after is Extended Masking.