[halflingmage]

This is basically just a mental exercise.  It presupposes that a group will sit down not just with the intention of ruthlessly optimizing their own characters but to synchronize the builds to work together.  And when you do that you can come up with ridiculous things.  But it is no  more ridiculous than pornomancer builds with unbeatable social skills, gunslinger adepts with high 20's dice pools to attack, Cyber-trolls with more than 40 dice to soak damage etc etc.

Also, if you think they are unbeatable, all it takes is one guy with astral perception to drop an ARO on the tac net and several others to start firing the grenade launchers.    Sure, against opposition with no magical support they are hot death on a rocket, but cyber characters against low end opposition without high end combat skills are also hot death on a rocket.  Basically you are saying "we would really kick ass against opposition that is bad at countering what we are good at."  Any GM worth his dice bag will have you fighting bug spirit swarms, toxic shamans with a piles of bound spirits,  draco forms, shedim masters, vampire cabals, etc.

I would suggest to you that a GM fiat "You're Ambushed!" by a volley of explosives is a TPK for any group.  Including the Super-Cyber-Soaking Troll by the time the overpressures get calculated.  Pretty much the definition of Degenerate Game Situations.  http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RocksFallEveryoneDies 

And yes basically a mental exercise, if a GM were to allow a team like this at a table I would expect draco forms, shedim masters, vampire cabals, ect.  Not the sort of things you commonly see thrown at a out of the gate runner team.

I agree, ambush with multiple grenade launchers is going to geek just about anyone.  Which was my point.  A team like this can pull off some crazy stuff, but so can many other team combinations.  But the moment you assume you are so bad ass you can take all comers is generally when you hit something that can drop you in two passes. 

[Senko]

Would you like to muzzle my mage as well with all the options your banning you might want to keep me from talking unless the sam lets me.

Personally I'd rather play a mage than a mystic adept even if the later is potentially more powerful simply because it loses me astral perception and nothing they gain offsets that to me.

[ZombieAcePilot]

The smoke grenades would stop you, actually. You cannot target astral auras alone. Says so right on pg 281 of the main book. And while you could bring spirits out en masse, you basicly violate the gentleman's agreement not to be douches. What follows are grenades during the pass it takes your spirits to materialize.

I don't know why people think it's funny to try and ruin the game. All the GM has to do is stand up and walk away. He could also kill you all, but the easiest thing to do is drop you like you are a good tvshow on fox.

[ZeldaBravo]

Personally I'd rather play a mage than a mystic adept even if the later is potentially more powerful simply because it loses me astral perception and nothing they gain offsets that to me.

This. I currently play a mystic adept and it feels so... restricting. I'd rather be a magician.

[Mestoph]

My group also bans Mystic adepts, but not because they are overpowered(its pinnacle of min-maxing in shadowrun in my opinion) but because they do feel a bit forced into shadowrun lore. It's like filling the setting with quantity but not quality.
"Hey, lets mix adepts with mages and create new totally original awakened type~"

[gradivus]

My main issue with mysads is that they get access to everything bar projection. I'd rather see them as aspects by default, forcing either summoning or sorcery as a choice for the build. Having access to everything but only losing projection which is niche anyway, means they get too much boom without enough need imho. If they're built to a theme and ok'd by a GM, it's no bother but an optimised party of them all synced to work together is just going to lead to headaches on the table. Fun paper exercise trying to build it though :-)

When Core first came out, I thought that MysAds where too powerful and that it should be Aspected:Sorcerer, Conjurer or Enchanter (ughhh, but someone might wish to be one, just not me). Then they increased it to 5 karma per PP and I was like, k. But the longer I play, the more I feel it should be Aspected w/2karma per PP. A MysAd could then start with his PPs and a Mentor and a Way if he wanted. If they'd reduce Ways to a more reasonable cost then PPs being 5 karma should stay.

[Whiskeyjack]

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that any table that you're at Whiskey is likely a touch more challenging than what you'll see in a standard module.  Just a suspicion.  ; )

Ha, well, my group is playing through Ghost Cartels and I'm really the only experienced SR player among them. And it's the other caster whose philosophy is "Toxic Wave first, ask questions later." My guy intentionally doesn't kill unless he's specifically paid to kill, but he's still got a strong build, and I haven't felt like we particularly curbstomp enemies (though part of that is most of the players don't think super tactically and stand in the open a lot, hence terrible injuries).

but an optimised party of them all synced to work together is just going to lead to headaches on the table.

This is forgetting that the GM is wholly entitled to reject builds or set a cap on particular archetypes.

Not trying to play into Rule Zero here, but I feel like it's a different consideration than Rule Zero usually implicates, since we're not talking about a broken specific piece of mechanics that "the GM can fix if it's a problem," but the group the GM is allowing. Like, my GM pretty much said, "there's hacking, and I don't want to rework all this stuff to not need a decker, so someone needs to play a decker."

[Hobbes]

I agree, ambush with multiple grenade launchers is going to geek just about anyone.  Which was my point.  A team like this can pull off some crazy stuff, but so can many other team combinations.  But the moment you assume you are so bad ass you can take all comers is generally when you hit something that can drop you in two passes.

Pulling off crazy stuff is a good Shadowrunners bread and butter  ; )   Anyway, I don't know what a Decker, a Facemage, and a couple other mages are unable to do that other teams could.  Elaborate capers I suppose involving multiple Face characters? 

The Meta strategy on the mostly mage team is that for early runs they're able to easily overwhelm the magic security you see on starting runs and therefore always have Mage vs Not-mages.  And after a few runs, get Masking, and then Extended Masking, and then have an incredible array of options as long as the run isn't taking place in a Mana void.

But to your point, maybe my disclaimer should have included "Kids don't do this at home" to be more clear about the theory-crafting nature of the post.    

[Whiskeyjack]

But to your point, maybe my disclaimer should have included "Kids don't do this at home" to be more clear about the theory-crafting nature of the post.   

I think it makes for a better narrative story, or example of a specific NPC team, than it does a good basis for a PC team.

In part because if it's so easy, it gets pretty boring. And because it can be boring if everyone can do basically the same things.

[ProfessorCirno]

Wait, so your mystic adepts are a) maxed out on their spellcasting stats, b) maxed out on spellcasting and sneaking and combat skills, c) spent all their karma to increase their PP, d) Have a ton of spells each, and e) assumably had enogh nuyen to cover actually existing outside of runs and having fake SINs and whatnot as well as whatever weapons they'd be using?  EVERYONE is also all sustaining multiple spells each apparently without penalty?  Because they sure don't have the nuyen to buy any foci.

I would absolutely love to see those characters statted out.  I imagine we're going to see a lot of 1's in attributes.

Also a single mana barrier ends the run instantly.

As does literally anything that can see astral.

Hell, just having a few guard dogs ends the run.  Like they don't even have to be hellhounds or some kinda super magic dog.  Just put a few german shepherds in, they'll know something suspicious is about.

How do you have a few spirits just sorta hanging out on the standby?  I've noticed your team in general requires absolutely impossible amounts of pre-planning.

Psych has an addiction rating of 6 and a threshold of 2 - and you're dumping Logic in most these characters.  Even if it is pharma grade, that's super risky.  How are you gonna avoid addiction?  Not to mention almost everyone is chowing down on 400 nuyen worth of drugs several times a run - the same people who have resources E.

What do you do on runs that aren't "go into this one specific place and grab something that is out in the open and is small enough to fit inside your jacket?"

THe lesson here isn't that magic is overpowered, it's that anything looks silly when you forget or ignore their problems.

[Marcus]

*Gets out the Popcorn.*

I'll start. Cirno, it was already said these are throw away character long term issue like addiction are meaningless for flash in the pan con builds.

[CitizenJoe]

Rules for cons. 

1. GM brings pregens because it is Shadowun not Build a Bear cyber workshop.

2. Play the F-n game.

[Rooks]

This is basically just a mental exercise.  It presupposes that a group will sit down not just with the intention of ruthlessly optimizing their own characters but to synchronize the builds to work together.  And when you do that you can come up with ridiculous things.  But it is no  more ridiculous than pornomancer builds with unbeatable social skills, gunslinger adepts with high 20's dice pools to attack, Cyber-trolls with more than 40 dice to soak damage etc etc.

Also, if you think they are unbeatable, all it takes is one guy with astral perception to drop an ARO on the tac net and several others to start firing the grenade launchers.    Sure, against opposition with no magical support they are hot death on a rocket, but cyber characters against low end opposition without high end combat skills are also hot death on a rocket.  Basically you are saying "we would really kick ass against opposition that is bad at countering what we are good at."  Any GM worth his dice bag will have you fighting bug spirit swarms, toxic shamans with a piles of bound spirits,  draco forms, shedim masters, vampire cabals, etc.

I would suggest to you that a GM fiat "You're Ambushed!" by a volley of explosives is a TPK for any group.  Including the Super-Cyber-Soaking Troll by the time the overpressures get calculated.  Pretty much the definition of Degenerate Game Situations.  http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RocksFallEveryoneDies 

And yes basically a mental exercise, if a GM were to allow a team like this at a table I would expect draco forms, shedim masters, vampire cabals, ect.  Not the sort of things you commonly see thrown at a out of the gate runner team.

I agree, ambush with multiple grenade launchers is going to geek just about anyone.  Which was my point.  A team like this can pull off some crazy stuff, but so can many other team combinations.  But the moment you assume you are so bad ass you can take all comers is generally when you hit something that can drop you in two passes.

Except when your mage has detect enemies/detect life and the adepts have combat sense

[Hobbes]

*Gets out the Popcorn.*

I'll start. Cirno, it was already said these are throw away character long term issue like addiction are meaningless for flash in the pan con builds.

Essentially.  If you're doing something like this the players and GM are building a campaign that is heavy on magic, you're not going to be running modules or missions.  At least not without adding Astral hit squads watching over several objectives.  I struggle with the idea of a six pack of true forms hanging out at the Stuffer Shack, but I suppose bugs probably like slurpies.  Would be sort of hilarious, I may start my next campaign in a similar way.  All my players have played Stuffer Shack throughout the various editions, they'd never see it coming... 

Or the players/GMs like playing on easy mode and are quite fine with stomping all over the standard runs that are out there and simply enjoy the design challenges and coordination. 

Or you and a group of friends have decided to steamroll some missions at a random event for lulz.

*shrug*  I don't judge how folks get their jollies.  If you ever happened to play City of Heroes or other MMOs and run with a group like Buffer Overun or Repeat Offenders they do vaguely similar things.  Use buffs/debuffs to blow through end game content without the standard MMO tank/heals/dps team. 

To Cirno, lots of Magic A mystic adept builds out there with decent runner skills, pick your favorite, Str, Logic, Char would be at the table min, yes "dump stats", welcome to Shadowrun 5th edition.  RAW addiction rules are incredibly trivial to Meta, if you run once or twice a month you can pretty much ignore them.  The team can cope with any objective at least as well as any other, and very well with the runner bread and butter data steals, infiltrations, and extractions.

[Tarislar]

LMAO,   Okay,  that was a good read on the first post.


Oddly, my last group was heavily awakened & it wasn't planned out that way.   (Not as bad as the team above, but heavy awakened for sure)

We all created characters before the 1st game & then introduced them at game 1.

Day-1 Cast:
Human-Decker
Troll-Adept
Elf-Adept
Elf-Mystic Adept

3 Awakened Metas, none of it pre-planned.

Later we added a Human-Shaman

Guest appearances have been done by a Sniper & a couple Riggers once each.  (2 Humans & a Dwarf)

The odd thing is, I don't feel we "steam roll" any more than Cyber-Sams would.
We mow down low skill Mooks easy enough but the few times we've had some Elites come at us we were hurting bad, really bad.

The 2 adepts are not uber cheese at all,  both solid character concepts that are specialized but have flaws.
Pistols for the Elf & Shotguns/Axe for the Troll means they have range & accuracy issues at times against really bouncy things.
The Decker spread out in skills so he can do stuff that most of us are horribly lost at, like Demolitions & Freefall but in turn isn't overly specialized at Decking.
The Mystic does a couple things on Offense fairly well at 12-16dice, good but not amazing, & negotiates deals well.
But other than that is mostly just hard to kill/surprise/ambush as he is very very bouncy & keeps buffs up.
The Mage that came on late has probably one of the best "combat" abilities with 15 Dice at casting Fireballs.

But no one on the entire team except the pistols guy can throw a pool at someone with 18+ dice in it.
  And again, its Pistols, not Automatics or LongArms.  So the range & damage are really limited.

I think anything can be broken if you full optimize to 18+ dice for the majority of your key rolls.