[Opti]

My shaman player continually summons a force 4 air spirit and uses engulf on everything. It uses the air engulf which bypasses armor, and does a crap-ton of stun damage. Nearly everything except boss-types fall easily within the first round since they automatically take damage again on thier action phase, and cant do anything until they escape. Are we playing this wrong, or is there something I should be doing to remedy this?

Another of my players wants to create and sell spell formula for foci and sell them to his talismonger contact. He created a force 4 power focus (it took 4 days) and now wants to sell it (according to the rules for fencing to contacts) for 18,000 (foci power (4)x 18,000 =  72,000, and sold for 5% x loyalty rating (5) = 18,000) nuyen. I went step-by-step and this seems legit, but also seems like a cheap way to get a lot of money for no real work.

Lastly, one of my players used Mob Mind in the first round of combat to make an entire street gang shoot themselves in the head, since he got 5 successes and their resist pool was only 4 dice each. Help on this stuff?

Thanks.

[Slide]

The way to counter magic is usually magic. Until you throw a mage in the enemy ranks with counterspelling things like mob mind will probably mess you up. Well.... If I recall telling people to do something horrible to themselves gives them bonus dice. Or they just won't do it.  I'd have to check the exact rules on the spell. Now if I recall right mind manipulations are stupidly illegal and for good reason. Some times the athorities will have to investigate half a dozen gangers blowing their own brains out. Who ever caused that is a threat to alot of people.

As far as him pawning of stuff on his talis monger... Congragulate him on his craftiness, but remember that that Talismonger is in buisness to make money. Not alot of people are looking to drop 72k on a power foci. If he's not selling them, he probably won't want to restock on them. And are you looking at the price for the power foci formula, or the actual power foci? I don't recall prices off the top of my head.  Also whats the conection rating on this talis monger? The contact rules are kinda wonky but I'm gonna say that a low conection contact wouldn't have the money to drop on power foci every 4 days.

[GiraffeShaman]

Gas masks. Also if a tactic is effective, try using it on your players. See how they adapt and respond to the threat. You might learn something new in this manner.

In addition to counterspelling, some tactics can be used to even the  odds for mundanes. Smoke grenades and other methods tof limiting visibility work well on mages, although be aware that they can blind fire indirect damage spells. Divide up groups of gangers and come at him from more than one side. Use skirmishers. These are weak troops that are mainly used to tie down or distract a foe, meanwhile the more powerful troops rush in on a flank or the like.

 If you want to force him into melee, have the fights start up close and personal. You have an enormous advantage in that you  generally set the battlefield, unless they put a lot of work into stealth and setting up ambushes.

Mana barriers and wards can also be useful.

There are some tactics so effective that they have to be used sparingly and very carefully or you end up with a dead team of runners. Snipers are one of them. Combined with open ground and/or towers, it can be especially deadly. An invisible sniper more than 50 metersc away isn't detectable by ultravision in 5th edition by the way. Stun grenades inside a building are another thing I've noticed to be dangerous to players, perhaps overly so. The thing is that even if the enemies miss, there's now a bunch of random stun grenades being lobbed about in a building. Well, even if some guards are hit, it's probaly going to turn out bad for PCs, since there are only about 4 of them.

Explosions. If they are good enough for Burn Notice, they are good enough for you. Now, you generally don't want to use them directly on the players, unless they've been really stupid, as you'll have a TPK on your hands. But they can be useful for guiding action and they send a powerful message as well. I'm fond of having the car they were just in explode to start off some missions.

Regarding the sales. First of all, note that there is possible essence lost in SR5 with foci creation, so your player is taking a risk doing this. Also with any kind of sales scheme/moneymaking scheme like this let it go the first time. If they try to repeat and spam this money making action, then introduce them to Nunzio. Nunzio controls that sort of action in this part of the city and believes the character owes him a huge percentage. Did I mention Nunzio is well connected in the Italian mafia? If a player acts like a shopkeeper, treat them like a Sixth World shopkeeper, with angry competitors (the guy who is now not getting to sell to that Talismonger) and mafia sharks swimming around looking for their cut.

[Pyromaster13]

The spirit part is an easy way to get negative police attention, especially if you're summoning the same type of spirit every time to commit murder.  A simple fix next time he does it is send a SWAT team to his apartment, with two allied mages in tow, since if they know it's a mage, they would obviously have mages to counterspell.  If he survives he'll be sure to not have a spirit as his go-to murder weapon everytime.

Also remember "geek the mage", spirits can only engulf one target at a time unless they have been invoked. That gives a chance for the other 3-4 mooks to kill the mage controlling the spirit, releasing the spirit from it's murder spree.

Regarding the sale of foci, if this is still 4th edition, there is always the "You require an exotic reagent in [insert random country]" making it take more than 4 days to avoid this very issue.  If he wanted to make foci for a living, why is he shadowrunning.  You have time for one or the other, no side job drek.

[Bull]

I had a standing rule with my players...

If tehy started making and selling anything, their characters got retired and became NPCs, because they were no longer Shadowrunners.  They were shopkeepers.  make a new character, your old one is now a contact.



And if the enemy isn't challenging enough, increase their numbers or increase their stats.  Add more mages.  have the mages have spriits.  Use drones.  Have snipers to deal first with the spirits, then with the uppity mage who summoned them.  Remember that spellcasting and summoning is not subtle (Force-6 threshold to notice).

Use wards.  Wards are cheap and easy to install, and they stop spirits cold.

Bull

[ZeConster]

Another of my players wants to create and sell spell formula for foci and sell them to his talismonger contact. He created a force 4 power focus (it took 4 days)

Hang on - if it took 4 days, the [formula Force] was 4, and those 4 days would be followed by an (Artificing + Magic [formula Force]) v. (formula Force + telesma’s Object Resistance) Opposed Test, without being allowed to use Edge, with the number of net hits you get being the actual Force of the focus.
So for the actual force of the focus to be 4, he'd have to reach the 4-hit Limit while the item got 0 hits on 4+3 dice (the lowest Object Resistance being 3 for things like hand-carved wood) - and the chance of the second thing happening is only 5.85%. You'd have a 20.48% of ending up with a Force 3 focus, 30.73% of ending up with a Force 2 focus, 25.61% of ending up with a Force 1 focus, and a 17.33% of getting nothing for your efforts - and that's only if you're 100% certain of getting those 4 hits.
Now, if we assume Magic 6, Artificing 6, and a Specialty in Crafting the type of Focus that you want, you'll have 14 dice and a Limit of 4, the focus has 7... assuming I'm inputting this right on anydice, that's 27.84% of nothing, 25.44% of an R1 Focus, 26.35% of an R2 Focus, 16.05% of getting an R3 Focus, and 4.32% of getting an R4 Focus. On average, that's about an R1.4357 - and if you only want the R4 Focus, it'll take you 23 tries, or 92 days, on average (if you'll settle for R3 or R4, it's 5 tries, or 20 days, on average).
Also, keep in mind that if you like the result, you'll have to spend [Force] Karma to finish the Focus, which means your alchemist (who I assume has a karma-heavy character advancement route) is basically spending 1 Karma per 4500 nuyen - if you don't allow your characters to trade nuyen for Karma, he's basically hindering his own progress for a quick buck.
Lastly, if this is a chargen contact (I'm assuming you don't make it particularly easy to raise a contact's Loyalty Rating in-game), the highest Connection it can have is 2. So that contact is going to have a hard time actually finding someone to sell the focus to. And of course, with a Loyalty Rating of 5, the player is opening themselves to plot hooks like "Your contact got kidnapped! Go save him!".

[Opti]

Thanks for all the replies guys. I am running the missions, and so I don't feel like I have the flexibility to add this or that just to counter particular players. But there are some things that you have suggested that I will start to implement.

As for the crafting, he wasn't making foci, in case that wasn't clear, just spell formulas for foci.

Also, where does it say in the book that you can't spend edge on the crafting tests?

[emsquared]

Also, bear in mind that it's not a competition. Of course you want there to be a sense of danger to the game, otherwise it's probably not going to result in very good/immersive RP, but as a new GM (especially if the players are new, which it sounds like maybe not), don't stress too much over mechanical challenges. Use this time to get familiar with what works and what doesn't and experiment conservatively with the mechanics. SR is a really hard game to give just the right amount of mechanical challenge with (and for me, frankly, often involves deciding in the moment that a particular NPC or two or three need to be throwing a few more dice). It's very easy to over-challenge and outright kill a PC or two (or all). Focus on the mood and setting and RP and the story. Turn the easy battles into epic narratives, let your players feel great about their abilities, it doesn't mean you're doing a bad job - you're learning, hopefully they know that. You can humble them later I know you said you're doing Missions, so I have no clue how much opportunity you have for this, but put more emphasis on the non-mechanical challenges. If it's a dangerous, conflicted RP scenario, challenge them here with their choices and interactions.

[Nal0n]

Always remember Background Count (Street Magic p. 117 ff.).
A Background Count of 1-2 is reasonable for any Urban Area. Very handy to tone down annoying Magicks.

[ZeConster]

Nal0n: judging by the "5% x Loyalty" bit, this is 5th edition, not 4th.

As for the crafting, he wasn't making foci, in case that wasn't clear, just spell formulas for foci.

Only a finished power focus costs Force x 18,000, though - a focus formula is only worth 25% of a finished focus (pages 326 and 461), and even assuming your contact doesn't already have it, you can only sell it to them once, since it's like a recipe. So in the unlikely event that their talismonger contact didn't already have a Force 4 Power Focus formula for your character's tradition lying around, but was interested in buying one, they still only would've bought it for 72k*25%*(5*5%), or 4500¥.

Also, where does it say in the book that you can't spend edge on the crafting tests?

Step 5 of Artificing says this about crafting the actual focus (not creating the formula, just crafting the focus):

At the end of the crafting time, it is time for the dangerous part of the process: invoking the power of the focus. Make an Artificing + Magic [formula Force] v. formula Force + telesma’s Object Resistance. This counts as the culmination of all your work over the days, so you can’t use Edge for this test.

[DigitalZombie]

We did something similar once, not in shadowrun, but in another system. Basically we found a way to make waaaay more money intended by selling crafted goods, than doing adventuring stuff. In the end some nasty demon came, because something something about a portal and magic items yadda yadda (a not too solid reason, cant remember details) and TPKed all of us. Later we found out that the GM thought we ruined his game (we did, we just didnt see it at the time) so he decided to punish us all for it, harshly. He could have avoided it all if hed just had a conversation with his douchebag friends, saying\ guys, that magic crap load doesnt really work for me, I know its totally legit by the rules, but its ruining all our adventures, cant we just ignore those rules and get on with the heroic stuff instead?

Back in 2nd ed, we had a gentlemans agreement saying, we didnt use assault cannons, unless we wanted the opposition to do the same. an arms race in GM vs players alwas ends with both sides as loosers.

[Opti]

I didn't mean to suggest that he was making full talismans, just the formula. And he ended up selling them for about 4,500 in between each job. Does that sound more reasonable?

[Opti]

But it seems like people are suggesting that any given talismonger may not need many "force 6 power focus formulas," right? So selling one each week might not be realistic?

[ZeConster]

Focus formulae are basically really complicated recipes for making foci, and they aren't lost when making a focus, so once a talismonger obtains one, they can just make copies and sell the copies. Selling even a single force 6 power focus formula to your contact ever is already unrealistic: selling more than one doesn't make any sense at all.

[Opti]

Excellent, that is just what I needed. Thanks, ZeConster!