I should probably also mention for our mage characters that the science of this world has studied you and your magic. There are preparations that can hinder you. One such example is an Erasure Ward- these babies come in three different tiers (Tier I, II, and III) and they can cancel spells of that same tier (I'll discuss each players abilities with them so if they have spells they'll know what tier a certain spell is). 

This is meant to be more of a puzzle kind of thing rather than a means of keeping mages underpowered.