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[kv]

Yeah, there's definitely not enough points starting out to put together a solid, well-rounded mage. But with a little bit of karma investment, you can have a pretty powerful character.

  - kv

[Ingo Monk]

New post in my character thread btw.  Anyway I just keep getting the feeling that mages are more designed to do recon than actual combat until they get some karma and let you have experience and get a grasp on your spells.

My opinions on mages in combat:
1. Mages should never be in front.
2. For combat, you're either combat or support.
2a. Combat mages cast damage spells
2b. Support mages either prevent incoming damage (i.e. mana barriers, or cover with line of sight prevention or distraction [illusions]).

You can't be a combat medic, and you can't take hits.  You need to have really good mental attributes and magic skills and drain resistance as well, so that means all your other skills and attributes wind up sucking.  I once tried to make a mage with high drain resistance that would boost initiative and cast a bunch of spells, but I could only do it with a bunch of foci and a lot of BP.  I couldn't do it with the standard 400 BP either, needed at least 430-450.

Playing a starting mage is tough, but it should be.  Mages always end up being the most powerful characters in the long run in most game systems.  Look at D&D, at 1st level you can die in one hit, but later levels you can disintegrate people, blow up castle walls, etc.  I think in SR a good starting mage will have spells that support the group, at least one attacking spell (stun is a good one due to drain), and maybe some kind of "defensive" spell (something that helps you get away to live to fight another day).

To me mages are the most rewarding in the long run, as they change the most when you play.  Over time you see the growth in power and capability, whereas a Street Sam just gets better weapons or a few pieces of better cyber.

[bull30548]

I completely agree mages get to be the most powerful and seem to fit that mold that DND presented years ago first level you are pretty squishy.  The thing of it is that we are already facing off with a Red Samurai squad.  That never ends well for anybody unless you get lucky or are just that damn good.  Those guys have enough armor where I couldn't crack it with my Ares Predator.  So my physical combat is pretty much out.  Meaning i have to rely solely on magic to hope to hurt them.  And the suggestion of stun is good starting point I agree.  But it still would take me based on KV ruling 2 castings to put one down with a stun bolt (and that is if the person fails to resist) and if they do resist it is 4 castings.  KV I changed the contacts to goggles and added some mage sight goggles so I am actually probably going to switch them out next action that way I can stay behind cover while using the fiber optic to look around the corner.  I now see why those damn things are so important.

[Ingo Monk]

I agree with KV with the sentiment of having a mentor spirit.  The bonus dice they provide far outweigh the BP cost. 

For example:
Bear: +2 dice for Health spells, +2 dice for resisting physical damage
Dragon Slayer, Wise Warrior & Wolf all give +2 to Combat spells.
Dark Goddess: +2 dice for Combat and Health Spells

Bear gives +2 dice to resist physical damage.  That's like always having +2 Body or +2 Armor to soak damage.  It's a magical bonus that can never be negated unless you act against the wishes of Bear.

A bunch of mentors give bonus to Combat, but Dark Goddess (from Street Magic) gives Combat AND Health spells.  Remember Health spells are not only healing, but modifying attributes.  Increased attribute, increased reflexes, heck even decreased attribute.  When someone's attribute goes to 0 they fall down unconscious if I remember correctly.  Decreased Willpower is a good one to have when trying to interrogate someone via Intimidation.

Like I said before, a mage shouldn't try to be a combat mage at chargen, there's too many limitations on them.  Instead try to be a support mage, and add in some combat spells later on with some Karma.  Heck you can get decent skills at automatics, then sit in cover while spraying the baddies for suppression while your more combat oriented comrades move forward or flank.

[kv]

Ingo pointed out that I read the rules for the spellcasting wrong, so in the case of the spell that I just rolled for, Bull actually ended up doing an additional 5 damage. Ouch.

Which means I should have used her application of the professional pool (+5 dice, exploding 6s) to avoid near-death. I'll call it a draw, and tack on a few extra boxes of damage for her.

We're still waiting on Yogi's action, and then we'll get going. If we haven't heard by tomorrow night, she'll delay action to open the gates of hell on whoever sticks their heads through the hole.

  - kv

[Ingo Monk]

The rule in question:

The hits scored on the Spellcasting Test may not exceed the spell’s
Force (see Force, p. 177).

But remember spellcasting is an Opposed Test.  So Bull's Sorcery Pool (Magic + Sorcery + Specialization) vs Opponents Pool (Willpower + any counter spelling).  Bull is more than likely to succeed with a pool of 12, so any net hits over the opponent get added to the Force of the spell (in this case 5) for final damage.

So in the situation in question, Bull gets 5 hits, Red Samurai gets 0.  Net hits is 5, added to 5 Force, for a total of 10 damage applied to the Red Samurai.  Dude is almost dead!

[bull30548]

The same applies top melee or firearm damage right?

[Ingo Monk]

The same applies top melee or firearm damage right?

Essentially yes, all damaging attacks require an opposed test. 

As soon as an attack lands, the Melee/Ranged defender gets a Reaction roll to try to dodge the attack (with an option to go on Full Defense and use the Dodge or Gymnastics skill).  A magical defender gets to roll their necessary attribute (Body or Willpower generally) to resist the spell, however they do not have an option for Full defense. 

Once the attack lands you calculate damage.  The Melee/Ranged defender gets to roll Body + Armor to soak damage except in special situations.  The magical defender doesn't get to roll anything at this point, the damage is applied.

Finally, the magical attacker must resist drain whereas the Melee/Ranged attacker doesn't have to roll any such test.

IMHO magic is way more deadly, but you must pay the cost of drain resistance to use the attacks. 

Here's an example:
Let's assume you have attacking characters with 5's in the necessary attributes and skills.  Let's then assume the defender has average stats of 3, and an armor jacket.  Let's also assume all rolls end up with 50% success rate, rounding normally (.5 rounds up)

	Magic	Ranged
Attack	Magic + Sorcery (10)	Agility + Pistols (10)
Hits	5	5
Defender Resist	Willpower 3 (2 hits)	Reaction 3 (2 hits)
Full Defense Option	No	Yes
Damage applied	8	8
Soak damage	(no roll)	Body 3 + 8 (armor jacket): 6 hits
Defender receives damage	8	2
Attacker resists drain	3	(no drain)

With the same number of hits, a magical attacker does 8 damage whereas the ranged attacker could have taken no damage if they went on full defense.

So magic is very powerful, even with starting builds as long as you put enough points in the right place.  And remember Magic is supposed to be very rare, with less than 0.1% of the world population being magically active in any shape or form (this includes magicians, adepts, aspected magicians, and even those who have the gift but can't or don't know how to use it).  With that in mind the likelyhood of coming across counterspelling is very low, except when playing with devious GMs

[Yogi]

I'm here.  Somehow I missed that it was a the third IP already. 

EDIT:

Is it the third IP already?  I thought we were wrapping up the second IP with everyone changing their actions.  Scarlets 2nd IP was taking down the drone. 

[kv]

Yogi, you can declare a third pass, if you want, but the third pass was empty- so we moved forward to the next round and the intro of the red samurai.

  - kv

[Yogi]

Ahh.   Somehow I missed that.   

Ok.   Scarlet would move to better cover (cor herself and to better cover the others) and put in a fresh clip.   

I'm beat.   I put in a 14 hour day today.   It's 10 pm now and 12 hour day starts at 4am tomorrow.   I can get a post up in the early morning most likely.  If not by then during my lunch break.  Sorry guys.   The OT is there this week.   I'm already at 72 hours for the two week period with 4 12's ahead of me.   Add in on-call on top of that makes for a beat up picnic basket stealing bear.   

[Ingo Monk]

Well, it is the travel season.  When people travel they tend to want to have picnics in nice places.  Lots of picnics means lots of baskets to pilfer.

In other words, we understand

[kv]

We do- you get to it when you can, no need to spend your lunch typing instead of eating delicious pilfered goodies.

If nothing else, if by Friday or Saturday you haven't been able to post, I'll just NPC you really quick and make things move forward. Scarlet moves to cover, reloads, and lays down cover fire against the first person to come through the hole.

  - kv

[kv]

Okay, sorry. Apparently I wasn't very clear about the timeline, and what was happening when.

So we're taking a step back, and we'll get to the red samurai arrival in a moment. I have the following noted down, and we're going to make these the round 1.3 actions:

Ruski - call to his buddy, tell him to take cover.
Ingo - continue hacking node
Bull - astral perception
Bulletsponge - take a shot, drop gun and run for bag
Yogi - reload, maybe move to cover(?)

Yogi, the only real cover in the place is back where Sly and Kinsey are hiding. Other than that, the main floor of the place is designed to have almost no cover. I guess you could hide in the bathroom door(s), if you wanted.

Okay. So now you get to post actions for round 2, some of which you've already done

Bull - manabolt
Bulletsponge - grabbing sniper rifle
Ingo -
Yogi -
Ruski -

Galbraith (Bulletsponge's character) called out that the Red Samurai are inbound, so feel free to act with that knowledge.

  - kv

[Ingo Monk]

1st pass I was trying to hack the drone, 2nd pass I was going to jam on the fly, but then the drone was taken out.  So 2nd pass I was going to try and get into the APC?