From: nigel@rs733.GSFC.NASA.Gov
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Re: Srun magicalness
Date: 8 Apr 92 00:43:07 GMT
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md, USA

In article <tkelly.702644322@unix2.tcd.ie> tkelly@unix2.tcd.ie (Rincewind) writes:

>This article is replied.It was sent  by Nigel someone.I would have
>replied direct but our mail system appears to have problems with replies
>Hello to Darkwind,if he's reading this.

My system is the on-again off-again type node.  Mail to our site is flakey.

>[SRUN magic sucks deleted]

[most of my stuff deleted...]

>>SR there is zero reason to have samuari...mages can be faster and
>>tougher and the nonsense of mages being some sort of rarity go out the
>>window when you find gangs of the little suckers roving through
>>Seattle.

>I don't remember meeting any gangs of mages.

Whizzer gangs.  It's in the sourcebooks and possibly mentioned in the
Grimoire.  Idiotic IMHO so there aint no such animal in my world...but
stock SR (which nobody seems to run ;-) has them.

I don't have any of the pre-canned scenarios but I doubt you'll find
one wihtout mages in the bad guy list.

Intro-scenario (Stuffer shack SR basic book)...low life street scum
with a shaman in their party...robbing a stuffer shack no less.

Some of the other random encounters indicate that mages are more
common than what I consider "rare".

>However,chummer,ya do have a point of sorts.You see,magic is powerful,
>and why not,but consider all that a mage has to sacrifice to be able to
>become a wizard.His magic is affected by cybers.His priorities don't get
[more stuff deleted]

True...mages are on the sort end of the stick when it comes to karma
and nuyen. 

[stuff deleted]

>Yes,yes but consider this bit of info.The mages that you have described
>apparently are immune to the affects of drain,from what I can see.The
>barrier spell can put you unconscious becuase of drain,and then your
>mage is chicken feed.If I were you,I'd ask your GM to roll Drain

As the GM I watch that religiously.  Unfortuantely I succumbed to a
pretty face (what was that thread about no females in gaming ;-) and a
neat character concept without reading all the implications and ended
up with a were tiger mage with magic rating 8...which isn't quite
according to the rules but since she paid for the metahuman category
and normal stat generation, ie: not book were stats; I took the
essence rating as the magic rating.  The book is unclear if high
essence equals a magic rating but the reduction of essence sure
trashes your magic so hey it makes sense.

No problem though...as it happened (quite by random...really) I used
the standard shaman archtype and noticed the lousy spells and nice
astral attributes.  I figured he went the the close and personal form
of magic. An experienced mage might have a foci and the obvious one
for him would be a weapon foci.  As it turned out in a random roll it
was a oracilum (or whatever) one...

>properly next time and watch as your mage first tosses up an increase
>Reaction +4, then a Barrier spell,then passes out from exhaustion.

No...good magery takes prep...therefore spell locks.  Fortunately the
only PC mage has a lousy spell selection and I have limited the
avilability of spell locks.  BUT assuming the mage knows the
opposition is mundane he would prepare...probably with locks.

>Slamming a deadly spell dircetly at them as you so quaintly put rarely
>kills all of a group,and often puts said mage into the land of
>Nod,especially if he's trying to hold up a bullet barrier at the same
>time (+2 to all target numbers,including Drain rolls).

True...but it also depends on your average opposition.  Willpower 6 or
Body 6 should be vaguely rare if the standard human is a 3.  Assuming
you get most of them with even moderate damage your normal security
goons can mop up the rest.

[every party need balance...which is sort of true but not...]

Hmmm...the physical adept (which I consider a mage or mage like) or
the limited sorcery combat mage (lose an essence for boosted reflex
and smart gun link...still has good attributes) can fill in for
samuari in an "all magic" team.

>	1 mage/shaman but not one of each.
>	1 Decker 

optional...this is the easiest to get freelance...I let the team run
without a decker simply because this capability is not necessary to be
organic to the team in the missle of a fire fight.

>	1 Rigger,with a good selection of vehicles.

more optional...how many panzers run down your street?  How many
rigged vehicles that cost mega-nuyen exist?  Also a problem with
PCs...the rigger tends to stay with the vehicles...so what is he or
she doing most of the time while the rest of the gang is shooting up
the works?  Suitable NPC but like the decker can be a specalist attached
to the team at need.

>	1 stealthy type,probably a physical Adept with auto sucesses
>	1 Street samurai for excellent firepower and all-round capabilities

>       Others of diffrent types,probably 1 merc,and one guy who's a bit of
>       mixture of all of the above(a Jack-of-All-Trades)with a copule of
>       skills that the party might lack(like Negotitation 6)

Geez...is this a small shadow running team or a merc company?

>Our group have found that this set-up hardly goes wrong.We all have
>diffrent characters who's prime talents are useful to the whole party at
>some stage.Each character has his own place in the whole,with no
>competition coming from within.And we cover a really wide range of
>skills.The Jack-of-all-trades has been so useful,just like everyone else
>because his skills are obscure,and his contacts are many.

Ahhh...hmmm...I prefer each player have only one character.  I also
tend not to give players permanent NPCs add-ons.  They work for a corp
and so can get certain items at the manager's discretion.

[more deleted]

>In fact they are not often impervious at all,because they advance MUCH
>more slowly than your Street samurai.I'd say you've got the rules wrong
>somewhere down the line,or that the GM is putting you up against mages
>that are just too good.Remember also that Sam's tend to get rich quicker
>and for longer than do mages,enough to have followers and such at his

Rich quicker?  Why?  Everyone gets the same cut right?  Longer?
Errr...maintaining cyberware isn't all that cheap.  It may not be in
the rules but imagine how much maintenence effort is devoted to any
complex equipment...not to mention the new guns and the new bullets
and the latest in gee-whiz ware...I don't charge the samauri any nuyen
for maintaining cyberware but they blow money on new bikes, more guns,
special ammo (that gets used)...the mage tends to save money for those
big ticket items (that new lodge that the she wants...next year's
group fees) and has more nuyen "on hand" and has a nice apartment.

The rules I use are downgraded from normal SR.  Force of spell is used
as target number AND they get to stage down normally (ignoring armor)
after resistance.  The key is that most mundanes are real mundanes...
body and will of 3 is average.  Makes PCs much harder to kill...hired
thugs a tad easier...but not too easy for the low force spells.  Mages
are not common so most security types go naked magically...

Hard on the mage but until I do something about the armor rules the
bad guys do zilch damage as well unless using machine guns (NOT!).

>call,long before the mage has even got his first penthouse.

This depends on the player and the "niceness" of the GM.  There's no
reason "reality" should be cutting the samauri any slack in the
followers department.  We aren't playing D&D ;-)

>That's how it worked out in our group,anyway.We've all gotten pretty
>even karma awards,but the samurai and the other non-magics are very well
>off at this stage,whilst the mage has spent all of his money on this
>library or that item.He'much poorer than the others,but he doesn't
>complain.

Eh...I find that our samuari (being in the direct line of fire) burn
karma staying alive.  The best off is the sneaky physical adept.
Spends most of life lurking in shadows and nuking the random guard in
melee.  It doesn't help that the players who want to be sammis are the
direct frontal attack types...but what do you want from a former M1A1
tank driver and a very wierd Marklander ;-).  I let them live simply
because this is a game and you fit your campaign to suit the players.

If the mage and the adept were working alone I as GM would have a much
more difficult time of making things challenging (without being
overwhelming).  The smaurai "assets" are somewhat dubious at best ;-). 

>-- 
>------------****Rincewind the Wizard****-----------------
--
Nigel Tzeng
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