i have never really given my mages firearm skills. i have always relied on combat spells.
how about the rest of you? do you give your mages firearm skills or do you just sling spells?

Back in third, my mage was always handy with a pistol. Just grab a few sustaining foci with increased reflexes and aiming aids, and you're set.

As a mage, the fewer times you have to resist drain, the better.

I think you'd be pretty silly not to give a mage an alternate means of defending themselves outside of spells. Of course, the mage could have an ego the size of a planet, or just not like guns, so YMMV.

It doesn't cost much to throw in Pistols (pick-a-spec +2) 1 at chargen, and that at least gives you something to fall back on when magic isn't feasible, for whatever reason.

I usually sacrifice 1 magic point and get skillwires and an internal commlink.

"Magic is a gun, and I'm a mage." (ss.51)

Sorry, classic line.

I'm a GM, not a player, but I have never seen a player character without at least some points in Pistols (they only eschew Pistols if they focus on other firearms significantly). It's good backup for when you meet up with an enemy mage who's better at counterspelling, or if you end up somewhere with significant background count.

The mage in my group carries a Hammerli and hasn't fired it in months. But he would never leave home without it. For one, it's a dress pistol that looks good with his suit. For another, sometimes it's best not to sling spells first thing, lest you become the mage described in the battlecry, "Geek the mage!"

My ork mage was one of the rare few that is all spells, all the time. He did carry around a gun just to look less mage-ish though in a firefight. If you're not centering and only use direct spells, there's no good reason why a bunch of grunts should neccessarily be able to tell between an ork mage and his samurai buddies before it's too late.

Pistols at least. Most mages/shamans I play end up with also an assault rifle or a shotgun. It helps when the drain took a hard toll on you and you want to do something other than cast another spell.
And looking like an ordinary runner can be helpful sometimes.

My current mage has skillwires and will not use combat spells or any direct magic to hurt or kill others. He has Physical barrier, offensive mana barrier, and soon mob mind to avoid conflict.

He also has a Hammerli (that is just the sweetest light pistol, aint it?) if thing get rough.

thanks for the input. i think if a mage has taken drain, he would be more effective casting low-drain combat spells than firing a pistol (especially with limited skill). if you cast a force 5 stunbolt, you only have so soak 1 drain (right). so you wouldn't have to worry about taking more drain. once you factor in dice-pool modifiers, you would certainly get more successes with magic +spellcasting vs agility +pistol.

the point about counterspelling and backgroung count are convincing. last run i went on had a high background count and basically hamstrung the mage.

i can see the point about the "geek the mage" concept once the mage has been identified. but i would assume the character with the biggest gun would generally draw fire (at least during the first round of combat).

i just don't see wasting all those build points on a skill that i wouldn't really use.
but then again, i will probably want it if i don't have it. murphy's law, right?

I just started playing a Hacker mage, so he's mostly defended by drones and spirits. A dobie with an Ares Alpha is great for the grenades and automatic qualities. I also keep a Force 6 Spirit of Man with Stunball and Levitate (for tossin' thugs) on hand, he's worth the ass-whooping during rebinding.

I'd probably pick up a few points in pistols, but all my extra BP and Karma goes toward hacking stuff.

My mages take pistol or automatics (SMG) skill, sometimes shotguns, for close range use. In a close range firefight, it helps just to be able to sling a lot of lead and not stand out too much by casting spells. As mentioned above, if you aren't centering and using direct spells, you can still be holding your gun in firing position and cast spells, making it a little harder to tell who is the mage.

For long range or surprise attacks, I'd use magic since it is not affected by range and you could still use optic scopes to see the target better. For surprise, hitting a guard with a stun or mind control spell is a lot quieter than shooting them.

Don't forget about spirits. If you direct one of them to attack, you can use your gun and save the drain of spellcasting. That also gives the enemy mage something to think about aside from counterspelling or looking for you. While they are busy with the spirit, they will stand out and your team can concentrate fire on them, taking them out quickly.

>>>>> Well there are two things that every self respecting wizard or hippy flower power shawoman out there should do, first pluck out your own eyeballs in favor of a pair of fully tricked out Cybereyes (R3). Then buy yourself a pair of Smartshades that match the shiny new Predator that you are going to buy. And lastly, take some time to 'bond' with your team's gun bunny in order actually learn how to use your new toy.

Sure, 95% of the time I'll pick my mojo in a firefight, but when its life or death chummer, that 5% where magic isn't the better option looks awefully big to me. <<<<< -Bot

I have never played a mage (1st through 4th) that did not have firearms (aka Pistols) skill. Sometimes it is easier to use a pistol. None of my players have ever had a mage with non alternate fighting skill (like Pistols or blades, or something).

just my observation,
dog

Every mage I've ever played has had some sort of firearms skill. I learned the hard way that magis is best reserved for the things only magic can do. If you can achieve the same effect more readily through mundane means, then it's not worth buying the spell.

here's another strange thought: will platelet factory reduce boxes of drain suffered from overcasting spells?

One of my favorite SR moments ever was a mage duel. I was playing a hermatic that was slinging spells back and forth with a voodoo man. This was second edition, so we were both throwing two spells at once, and relying on foci to saok the drain. I was tossing a firebolt (dart- I forget the name) and amanabolt each round, so he was sustaining a mana and phsyical barrier, and throwing spells right back.

We were bascially playing "let's see who takes heavy drain first". Unfortunately it was me, and it was Serious drain. I'd seen a animated movie IIRC called Wizards a while ago, and got an idea. I started throwing just the one manabolt per round, obsensibly becuase of the drain. After two more rounds, he dropped the phsyical barrier, so he could really concentrate on frying me.

I won initiative, drew my Viper Slivergun, and blew the unarmored SOB away.

Moral of the Story:Always care a sidearm.

By the rules as written, probably yes, the platelet factory works on drain. However, there's a lot of differing opinions on whether it should. In my game, I say no.

Guns have no drain.

Or, y'know, hit the guy with it.

then i would need close combat skill. what would that be? clubs?

Yeah. Heh. I can just picture a shaman who specializes in Pistol Whipping.

I have seen PCs with no skill in any firearm. I have also seen a PC that did not use her pistol and stood in the front slinging mojo instead.

By the way, PC that stood out in the front didn't take a single wound while the troll tank that was supposed to be her bodyguard had a Light wound. She drew fire like nobody's business in the first round, but after that the hail of fire did nothing, the enemies did the next best thing and focused their firepower on the troll but by then they were at half strength.

Moral of the story - know what you are doing and do it right. Gun or not.

I'll add that mages, if they are going to learn a firearms related skill, should not learn pistols. You carry a pistol as a backup weapon or for concealable defense. Any battle fought with pistols should be short. As a mage, your spells are already much more concealable than any pistol, and you should be able to put up with the drain for any short engagement. In addition, your spells scale much better than any pistol, they can do massive damage if you need it, they have near unlimited range... A pistol does not really provide you with any extra combat ability.

It's on the 'heavy' end that a mage might want something else. for SR4, learning automatics (assault rifles) and heavy weapons (grenade launchers) is a much better use of your skill points. In a firepower heavy throwdown, you might not want to cast too many large spells because of the drain, but a bunch of air-timed grenades and a long burst as just as good against most things.

Pistols are good enough for plinking womprats minidrones from your speeder car. Due to OR, a mage would have trouble taking out even a tiny body 1 skimmer using magic. A predator is enough to take out a Doberman wth standard ammo and can even reliably destroy a Steel Lynx if loaded with APDS or Ex-Ex.

Crusher Bob is right. Heavy Weapons dont need line of sight.

I have played a few mages in my day, but they have all had some sort of a weapon skill. Guns are too good at doing what they do best to not use them to do so. Click boom.

Everytime I play a mage, I've also plunked down some points into some sort of firearm. This was applied also to my Earthdawn character I had, a wizard who was running around in leather armor and had a short sword in hand. No one could tell he was a wizard at first.

Oh hell yes. Most of the few magician characters I played back with Third Edition, haven't played any yet under current rules, always had some kind of firearms skill. Nearly always a shotgun like the Franchi SPAS-22 or some other semi-automatic model, same damage as a three round burst from a SMG yet none of the recoil. Got to the point where more often that not they'd go for the gun over a spell unless there was a real reason to use something like a fireball.

I typically take other forms of defense, unless the character really doesn't make sense for it. My mages typically have some sort of firearm(pistols or shotguns usually) and some form of melee or unarmed combat skill. Had a couple exceptions(one simply had thrown knives, and a shaman used a compound bow instead of a gun, and i did have one with melee but only spellcasting for ranged), but im a person who likes options. You don't sacrifice THAT much spellcasting ability for a few points in a gun and/or sword, with a specialization. And with the new smartlinks being able to be plugged into contacts or glasses, mages have plenty of self defense power. Swords have reach, pack a punch, and mages need not be fragile, textbook old school fantasy wizards(in fact, in SR i was in raptures that i could make my mage something other than a soft target.)

Guns are a handy backup for a mage - ammo is far cheaper than drain, and having a good gun and a decent skill in it frees the mage's stun-damage track for other uses.

Ofcourse, alot here depends on the mage at hand. Some mages are purists or near-purists and rely exclusively on magic; others (especially shamans of the more traditional type) would rely on melee weapons and/or projectile weapons.

Guns. Always guns.

SR1 - crusader MP crossloaded with APDS, Flechette, EX. (Weird armor degradation rules; apds opened a hole, flechette ripped it wide and the EX blew the target to bits. My skill of 6 (specialized) meant I could kill about 2 heavily armored goons a phase. I almost kept up with the panther-wielding samurai in the days before burst-fire rules.) Combat weapon was a combat shotgun and grenade launcher. Wound penalties aren't too much of a problem with blast-radius weapons. On at least 2 runs I remember having 9 boxes of stun and going through all of my ammo (~180 rounds out of the crusader and 50 rounds from the shotgun) With 1 action/round those were looooooooooooooong sessions.

SR2 - Typically kept a light pistol for keeping up appearances but went to a burst-capable shotgun on runs. Didn't use it much before I switched to a samurai character.

SR3 - either a heavy pistol/SMG or light pistol/SMG depending on character. Both preferred the concealability.

SR4 - haven't run a mage yet.

Always take guns, usually either the M23 or Ares Alpha, with a Predator or Savalette. I don't like slinging spells in combat, too risky on the drain and it leaves a big ass signature that basically says "I DID IT". The Mage in our runs is typically there for spell defence, dealing with magical security and as a scout with detection spells and projection, the sammies are there to kill people and the techies are there to open doors and counter physical security.

I'm also in the "Always have a gun" category.

I'd definitely support the Ares Alpha. Pick up Automatics 2, and a specialization - that's 10 bp for Agi+4 dice to roll. I also like to add heavy weapons (Grenade launcher) for 6 more. 16 bp gets you a fairly good backup, and versatility. Add in a smart link for +2, and you're going to be useful all over the place.

Sometimes, you're gonna find a guy where even a force 10 manabolt isn't gonna help against his counterspelling and soak. So you drop an incidinary grenade in his lap.

My last shaman used a shotgun and spells.

Not every shaman or mage grows up knowing they are casters, or will be. Sometimes they learn other things first

For SR4 i have to agree that the heavy weapon skill is most useful. The white knight is quite useful to nail though opponents, so are grenade launchers. Also assault cannons make perfect sniperweapons. as an alternative longarms are also nice, but not as versatile.

I recommend to keep the mage out of the firefight if possible and mob up from elevated sniper position.
The advantage here is that you can easily go astral to fight the enemy mage there.
For most combat situations i use spirits. spellcasting is best for health spells, to patch your team up later on.

I've never played a mage that couldn't handle at least one type of weapon. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever had a player go the sans-gun route with a mage, either. Too much utility to be had.

Nighteyes, my troll shaman with wolf as his mentor spirit, always carries the Ruger Warhawk he pulled out of his fathers dead hands. He's equipped it with a laser sight and loaded it with EX-EX ammo, so it's a quite formidable beast. He also keeps a shotgun loaded with flechette ammo for when ghouls come around. I got both skills to (3) with specialization.