[anotherJack]

You could too ask me "what a possession mage can do, besides magic ?", it'll be pretty the same type of question.
The point is possession traditions allows a mage to gain an extraordinary resistance, extremely high attributes without any implant or adept power, a free skillwire for 3/4th of the active skills, and he already have heavy firepower since he's a mage. He probably beats the streetsam mano-a-mano, he's an incredible infiltrer without even trying, since he has a very high agility attribute, he can emulate skills he never put karma in at the spirit's force rate, and can add concealment, he can move with incredible speed, would he have matrix abilities he would be a one-man team.
This make such characters hard to handle for GM, because they break a basic rule which is that all PC must have their place, their role in the team, and when a character's ability are totally overwhelmed by another, it's hard for him to find his place, to have a role in the team.
That's why there is a BP system, to allow characters to have very similar global power, but applied to different areas. It's not designed to allow some character to have one or two areas of expertise, and others to be masters in nearly all areas.
Of course, the GM can handle it, but it's much more hard than when you got a pretty similar global power among characters and no redundant functions in the team.

[Mäx]

You can never have the über-evil, all-powerful, initiate 10 wiz standing laughing at the players feeble attempts. He is wasted by the 4 inits mana bolt.

Thats one badly build iniation level 10 mage if that happens.
Iniation level 10 mage can have whole lot of dice for counter spelling:
Willpower 7(more is possible) + Counterspelling6 + 2 from specialication + 2 from mentor spirit + 10 from shielding + force 6 shielding focus + 6 from a spirit using aid sorcery = 39 dice for counter spelling and with absorotion metamagic can on avarage absorp 13 points of force from incoming spell, which he can use to slower the drain value of his own spell with 13(for example casting a force 16 napalm and only having to resist 2 points of drain)
To affect that guy your iniative 4 mage needs on avarage 3 more dice and he has maybe:
Magic 10 + spellcasting 6 + 2 from specialication + 2 from mentor spirit = 20 dice, so he needs to get 22 more dice to hit him and he also needs to cast spells at force higher then 13 or he just absorps them fully.

@the_gun_nut, you definedly can't ugrade armor to be hardened, that would be totally broken

[The_Gun_Nut]

The old gel packs used to just upgrade armor to hardened.  And milspec armor used to be hardened.  Had to check the current specs, and it looks like gel packs don't work the way they used to.

[Medicineman]

IIRC they just add +1/+1 to worn Armor

with an added Dance
Medicineman

[Leodriz]

Ok, i know that there is allways a way to kill anyone, hey, eaven Dunkelzahn got assasinated (by a nuke, but stil.)
Magicians at large and possesion tradition especcialy are still overpowered compared to other caracters. A mage with soummoning, possesion or not, allways got the skills he need at hand. Why have a thief character when you can conjure a  task spirit with hardware and lockpicking. Why have a street sam when a spirit can do the job etc. A magician with summoning is a whole party in himself, hardly fun for the other players who, eaven i specialized, get cicked in allmost every field by the mage. Oh, lets all play spirit summoning mages and shamans and get a virtual army of spirits to do all the work.

Luckily i don't think my players have discovered the power of spirits, though i believe none of them would abuse it in that way. We are all for the roleplaying part anyway.

[The_Gun_Nut]

Spirits have their drawbacks, so they aren't the perfect tool for every job.

Dunkelzahn wasn't assasinated.  He sacrificed himself to create a major artifact that would be capable of stopping the Horrors incursion into the world centuries before the mana level would normally allow them.

[Leodriz]

Spirits have their drawbacks, so they aren't the perfect tool for every job.

Dunkelzahn wasn't assasinated.  He sacrificed himself to create a major artifact that would be capable of stopping the Horrors incursion into the world centuries before the mana level would normally allow them.

Nope, they aint perfect for every job. But neither is any other caracter. Magicians with summoning are stilll much more versatile then any other character.

It was quite a while since i red the book, but dindn´t big D have himself assasinated or some such?

[Critias]

It was quite a while since i red the book, but dindn´t big D have himself assasinated or some such?

"Or some such" is the short answer, yeah.

[The_Gun_Nut]

Way, way, WAY too much backstory to get into here to bring everyone who hasn't read the Dragonheart Trilogy up to speed.

[voydangel]

I'm gonna have to read those books one of these days...

[anotherJack]

Dragonheart trilogy is pretty bad when read on the first degree. A lot of info on great plots, but the hero is just a Mary sue, and the whole thing isn't very subtle, it, to my point of view, very hardly finds its place in the grey universe of the sixth world. It's more a "pulp".
But, if you consider the novels are written from the hero's point of vue, very simplist and manichean because he has a simplist and manichean mind, it becomes a lot more interesting, and easier to make it fit with a non manichean universe. Take it like "starship troopers" should be, even if it probably isn't the author's intention, and it becomes nearly good.

[FastJack]

What anotherJack is trying to say is that it's a "fanboi's dream novel". Meaning, some of us SR fanboi's love the damn thing even if it ain't Shakespeare (or even Shakespeare's brother Tony).

BTW, I'm a fan of most of Jak Koke's novels, so no insult meant to him...

[Shinobi Killfist]

Spirits have their drawbacks, so they aren't the perfect tool for every job.

Dunkelzahn wasn't assasinated.  He sacrificed himself to create a major artifact that would be capable of stopping the Horrors incursion into the world centuries before the mana level would normally allow them.

He was assassinated until a crap story retconned it because someone couldn't cope with the concept of someone killing a great dragon. 

Honestly the dragon heart trilogy turned an awesome mystery of how this could be done into a pile of suck.  It went from a wow, there is something out there to boring metaplot IE/great dragons rule everything blah blah, who cares anymore.  And heck I generally like great dragons(hate anything elf though)

[The_Gun_Nut]

No, it was always metaplot.  What was seen in the sourcebooks was just what everyone else in the world saw, and the novels were the story of what, who, and why.

I've never gotten the impression that the great dragons or the immortal elves ruled everything.  My impression was that they were trying to control events, but that there are simply too many people in the world to do so openly.  So they have to really hug the shadows in order to get what they want done and survive.  But there are too many unknowns and "X" factors out there.

The story of the Dragonheart is a story of two sets of ambitions colliding, but even with everyone's carefully laid plans (the big names, that is) things don't always go their way.  Ryan Mercury almost gave up on it, and Mr. Darke's assistant almost ruined his plans.  Of course, Mr. Darke likes to play Zanatos Speed Chess, so he wouldn't have been hurting too badly.  But Burnout was definately the fly in Darke's ointment.

[Nomad Zophiel]

I'm honestly not too familiar with Possession based mages, but here's my two cents. Mages in Shadowrun are like mages in D&D or Jim Butcher's Dresden novels. Give them time to prep and they're nigh invincible. In the case of possession mages they can be good at any given thing with the right spirit riding them. Even normal mages with foci can muster an impressive offensive and defensive line but:
1. They have to muster it, which takes time and
2. That wears them out.

So your average mage isn't going to walk around with shields up and guns drawn (so to speak) unless he has a reason to suspect trouble. He's not going to have too many bound spirits because this is not only time consuming but dangerous if one of them slips. Your average Sammie on the other hand is walking around armed, armored and dangerous all the time. This has its own set of consequences. In general the reaction to a prepped and ready for battle mage, an angry sammie with a Panther canon, a corp military team or any other overwhelming force is to get out of dodge.

On the other hand, mages are human, Initiates doubly so. They have friends, enemies, lovers, bad days. You can hide from them, poison them, send their rival Initiatory groups against them, call Knight Errant when they start blowing stuff up etc. As NPC's these uber-mages deserve to be fleshed out enough to have real human weaknesses. As PC's they have probably developed them in the time it took to earn the 300 Karma we're discussing. The other side can and should work to find these weak spots and exploit the hell out of them. You probably don't want to use instantly lethal snipers against the PC's, but taking their loved ones hostage makes for some great dramatic tension. Against NPC's there's no shame in being clever. Whether its snipers, claymores or impersonating the mage's wife and stabbing him in his sleep, there are always options.