[adzling]

meh, you buy the dog and keep it fed.
more likely you would lease the dog from a company that specializes in breeding and training them (not many megacorps would bother to have their own breeding and training programs).

you have to pay the wage-mage every year, considerably more.

Insurance is not relevant as you would have to ensure the property against the wage mage and his astral servants in the same way you would for the hellhound.

Para-critters are cheaper in every way.

Nowhere near as effective, but deffo cheaper.

[Kincaid]

Hell, a normal dog is actually a pretty decent foil to sneaking characters/invisible character and much cheaper than the alternatives.

[Hibiki54]

The two Masking metamagics combined with Flexible signature pretty much can make you invisible on the Astral.

I was playing an Astral Mage with all three, Magic 8 and 5 Initiation. I spent most jobs sitting invisible in the Astral counterspelling and banishing while my real body was possessed by a high force bound spirit.

[MijRai]

Yes, you just have to 'buy the dog and kept it fed.'  That's the premise behind getting any pet or work animal, is it not?  The reality is different.   

It costs a lot to feed them, for one (500 nuyen a month, 6,000 a year).  You also have to pay the handlers, maintain the dogs' kennel (a High lifestyle), and do a myriad other things.  Shit, you'll need a janitor in bunker gear to go in and clean up after them.  There's medical expenses for these animals (which are Awakened and take more specialist care).  You have to modify the building for what you know the animal will do.  You have to deal with making sure the dogs are properly socialized and trained, or it will get a whole lot worse than when your wage-mage gets their leave denied.  Insuring the building is different from having to cover insurance when one of these animals goes after someone; life insurance pay-outs are expensive, and you're less likely to have a spirit cause that kind of ruckus. 

Paracritters are not cheaper than spirits.  They're cheaper than dedicated security mages, sure.  There's a difference between having spirits on hand and hiring a dedicated guard wage-mage.  However, paracritters, when used properly, are extremely effective at what they do. 

[falar]

Just get Force 1 Watchers and make sure one of your wage mages initiates into Greater Ritual. Boom, instant Force 5+ watchers for a minute's work and likely no drain. Let's say we have five wage-mages so we can get the limit up to five on Force 1 watchers ... assuming 4-5 net hits, that watcher ends up lasting a day. You can poop out an hour of these to get 60 places covered by things that aren't bothered by patrolling. Since they're astral-only, you can basically do this from anywhere and they'll get there on time.

Oh, also, spend an additional 2 drams of reagents and you will never have drain on this plan.

[adzling]

True dat, a well trained mundane dog will smell ya' regardless of how sneaky or invisible you are.

Hell, a normal dog is actually a pretty decent foil to sneaking characters/invisible character and much cheaper than the alternatives.

[Sendaz]

So I have a mage that, for various background reasons, isn't very adept when it comes to the physical realm (e.g., low physical attributes and skills). Probably not terribly unusual for a mage, but...the entire rest of our group are stealth monkeys (the lowest rating among them being an eight).

I'd thought that I could keep up with spells (e.g., invis), but every run we've been on so far, there's been something with eyes on the astral, so they pretty much auto-notice my character if I've put up any spells (and if I don't, my rolls in the meat world are so heinous that I'm pretty much auto-notice there anyway, since the opposition understandably has perception skills that might challenge the rest of the group).

I guess my first question on this is if they GM has continuous astral patrols spotting you, how is the rest of the team not getting picked up by them?
Granted they still get to roll their stealth vs the spirits/astral projecting mage's astral perception/assensing, but then it's against their basic skill and any technological enhancements like a stealth suit/camouflage/dark clothes generally will not help with this.
While mages/spirits will be more on the lookout for awakened activity, if they are set to watch a particular area and report/stop anyone going through there they can and should be responding to more than just the mage.

Of course as Karmainferno is fond of pointing out, a very simple and cheap defense against stealthing/invisible individuals is some plain old fashioned doors at both ends of a corridor.

 

[PiXeL01]

Of course the sneak skill work in astral space. You just can't tug your spells away unless you have the required metamagic techniques. But the patrols still gave to find you first to see said spells.

[Hobbes]

Uh...  Hobbes, spirits aren't stupid, or automatically pissed off they've been summoned.

P. 358  To set a spirit in a security role, it must be given a task that uses one of its services. Spirits are characteristically ornery and narrow-minded, especially when bound to long-term service, so the instructions given for the security service must be simple yet specific. A spirit could be used to report astral activity in the area, attack anyone in the restricted area during unauthorized hours, or other tasks with specific parameters and goals.

Emphasis mine.  And under the conjuring rules p. 301 big red box with the title "Bad Feelings with Bound Spirits"  Many words saying spirits generally don't like being bound to service.  Yes there are exceptions, but those should be uncommon, and honestly should likely be PCs.

This goes back to First Edition Shadowrun, that drew from the standard fantasy trope of summoned things trying to twist the wizards commands around.  Do what you will with it.

Paracritters are not cheaper than spirits.  They're cheaper than dedicated security mages, sure.  There's a difference between having spirits on hand and hiring a dedicated guard wage-mage.  However, paracritters, when used properly, are extremely effective at what they do. 

Spirits are the Alarm, the dedicated mage is the response.  Having an Astral Spirit patrolling without having a mage ready to respond Astrally is like having the Security System sign in your front lawn without actually ever getting the service.  It'll keep some of the hooligans out but it's not actually going to do anything.

Think of it this way.  Runner Astral Mage rolls in and blows away the Astral guard Spirit.  Mage heads to the macguffin, has a spirit materialize and pick up the macguffin, conceal itself, cast invisibility or mask on itself and then walk on out with the macguffin right past the "goon squad". 

You need to have a mage show up when the Spirit sounds the alarm, or it really isn't doing anything.  And yes, the Spirit is ornery and narrow minded and can be exploited by clever runners if they can figure out what the exact wording of the Spirits orders are.  Either by trial and error or legwork, clever players should be rewarded.

My point here is that GMs that let a simple spirit patrol shut down PC mages aren't quite playing fair.  Spirit Patrols should be only on fairly high value targets, and should definitely be something a Player can handle without "going loud". 

[MijRai]

Mkay, generally ornery I can accept.  Narrow-minded still doesn't equate to stupid. 

Spirits are the alarm, yes.  They can even be the equivalent to a sentient, magical drone.  It isn't at all like having the sign on the lawn without the service, though.  If that spirit reports, the corporation can send a team in.  If they get disrupted, the mage knows and can call the corporation to send a team in.  Either way, someone is going in.  You don't need to have a dedicated mage on hand to respond to that alarm, though. Mages are both rare AND expensive.  It is a risk and quite possibly a waste to have a security mage on site. (And really, keep in mind how rare those are.  Around 200 full, trained mages per million people, and a good chunk of those are going to have the common sense to get jobs that don't involve undue risk of bodily harm.)

So back to my point, no, you don't need the mage on hand, because that alert will go out, and there will be a response.  I mean, if spirit patrols are on high value targets, why would on-site security mages not be on even higher priority locations? 

As far as spirit patrols shutting down PC mages?  I never said they should.  The great thing about stealth is that it still works against astral perception.  If they can't see you, they can't cause a ruckus.  Go around them, lure them from their position, get in when they're not looking, those kinds of things are all options. 

[adzling]

Yaah turning off your focii and dropping any sustained spells should let a competent person use mundane stealth to sneak around, assuming enough cover.

[Hobbes]

So back to my point, no, you don't need the mage on hand, because that alert will go out, and there will be a response.  I mean, if spirit patrols are on high value targets, why would on-site security mages not be on even higher priority locations? 
 

If the response doesn't include a mage what are they going to do about something that is on the astral plane?  Astral Spirit, ergo something on the Astral Plane.  Spirits are there to protect against a magic threat, pretty much need a magic response.  Apparently YMMV.

[MijRai]

What can a 'threat' on the Astral do, exactly?  Attempt to investigate/reconnoiter?  Mess with the spirit on watch?  They can't affect the Material Plane or take anything...  Wards and other resources should prevent overt problems caused by astral beings.  There will have to be a 'ground force' of some kind if it is serious, which is the bigger threat all in all. 

At that point, the spirit says 'hey, there's a dude watching this place' and then they can have spirits deal with the problem or send in a centralized team in response rather than hiring expensive help for every site.  Perhaps some Aspected Sorcerers or Alchemists, or an Adept, who act on the warning given by some lab-mage's night-watch spirit.  Or the lab-mage calls, still half-asleep, and says the spirit they had watching the lab just got disrupted.  Cue the same off-site team heading to the problem zone, or more spirit backup being sent in. 

[Hobbes]

Yes Recon.  Also listen in on every meat space conversation.  Summon Spirits to do whatever physically needs to be done.  Summon Spirits of Man to cast spells if needed.  In short an Astral Mage can do anything that doesn't involve hacking. 

Or if you need to hack the Invisible Decker can just walk right in if all the Spirit does is report and nobody with Astral Perception shows up.

At that point, the spirit says 'hey, there's a dude watching this place' and then they can have spirits deal with the problem or send in a centralized team in response rather than hiring expensive help for every site. . 

The Spirit tells who exactly?  If the Spirit is reporting to the mage that summoned it, that mage is on the clock.  The Spirit really can't report to anyone else, and the Spirit won't exercise any Judgement or initiative.  The Spirit will follow the one order it was given.  Literally and narrow mindedly.  If the GM is letting a Spirit sit back, observe, and decide to do "The smart thing"  then the GM is handicapping the PC mage considerably. 

Yes the response team can be centralized.  Yes mage can be "on-contract".  Yes a mage can cover multiple locations.  These are all common practices that are cheaper for a corporation but could be exploited by clever players that do their homework.  But the point is, you're presuming a Mage is getting reports from the Spirit and doing something about it.  i.e. The corp is paying for a security mage.

[Hobbes]

Just get Force 1 Watchers and make sure one of your wage mages initiates into Greater Ritual. Boom, instant Force 5+ watchers for a minute's work and likely no drain. Let's say we have five wage-mages so we can get the limit up to five on Force 1 watchers ... assuming 4-5 net hits, that watcher ends up lasting a day. You can poop out an hour of these to get 60 places covered by things that aren't bothered by patrolling. Since they're astral-only, you can basically do this from anywhere and they'll get there on time.

Oh, also, spend an additional 2 drams of reagents and you will never have drain on this plan.

And if the Runners, or the Johnson that hired the Runners, finds out that this is what they're doing the mage should be prepared to get 47 alarms in a space of a few seconds.  Runner Mage orders a Spirit on a Remote service to fly by all these sites and trigger as many watchers as possible?  Security mage has to sort out a couple dozen shouting watchers while the Runners do whatever it is they do.

It works as long as the Runners are never given more than a couple hours to do legwork and the Johnson doesn't have any security details on the target.  "The five man Astral Security Boutique firm has a client list of 53 different sites?  Whaaa.....?"