Clearly it does, because if a spell used to do 10 damage (and one-hit-KOs) and was "good" and now that same spell does 4 damage (and does not) and is therefore "bad" clearly the measuring stick is being able to one-hit-KO the opposition.

Funny... I see the measuring stick as one thing not measuring up to something of similar capability. *shrug*

And that capability is...?

A Direct Spell should be about as effective as an Indirect Spell. Currently, that is not the case. Sadly, It was not so in SR4A either.
But then, most of My Magician Characters rarely use Combat spells to start with, so... *shrug*
Case in Point, my Current Magician Character (SR4A) is capable of FAR more damage with a Gun than a Combat Spell. So why would I ever choose a Combat Spell over my Gun?

Yeah... that has never been the fun-part of magic, no matter if overpowered or not.

Thanks for pointing out my mistake that Counterspelling doesn't use Magic rating. Believe it or not, I made that mistake on my proofread edit. Trying to think of too much at once.

But hold the phone! I made another mistake. I forgot to add the six exploding edge dice. That bumps the dice pool up to 33 exploding dice, so let's expect 13 hits to be conservative. BOOOOM!! Or you could get the initial result without having to spend the 1500 nuyen on the spirit or having the elf tell you what to do.

A better way would be to roll the 27 dice, spend 300 or so nuyen on reagents to ignore the limit and spend the Edge to reroll failures. With 9 hits and 18 failures, rerolling those would give an expected 6 more hits for a total of 15. That troll is going to SLEEP.

So now that I've gotten all of that entertaining comedy out of my system, the change does make the combat mage less dangerous and requires a real commitment to focus on combat spell dice pools if maximum damage is the goal.

A player wanting a do-it-all magician has three skill groups to work with on top of Assensing, Astral Combat, and the other must have skills that runners need, like Perception. On top of that, maxing their drain attributes is a must in this edition. Players wanting a magician face have two more skill groups on top of that to consider (Which is why this popular character type doesn't work for me personally). Telling them that to be combat oriented they need high Agility, Reaction, Intuition and Firearms is a bit much since they start the game with fewer attributes and skills than mundanes to begin with and cyberware isn't an attractive option.

Real combat characters get more initiative passes, deal more damage on every one of those passes, dodge better, and soak damage better. On the flipside, there are ways around it, but I think some GMs would be unhappy with them. (Oversized dice pools, extreme alchemy, initiating, overpowered foci, etc.)

"Just as effective" measured before resisting, or after? And if after, against what type of target? If before, then you're doing it wrong.

Quick and dirty analysis:

Force 6 (X)bolt (12 dice) vs average joe (W3): 3 damage, 3 drain

Force 6 Lightning Bolt (12 dice) vs average joe (B3, R3, I3, Armor 12) -- 2 net hits, 8P -6AP: 5 damage, 3 drain

--

Force 6 (X)bolt vs average troll joe (W3): 3 damage, 3 drain

Force 6 Lightning Bolt vs average troll joe (B8, R3, I3, Armor 12) -- 2 net hits, 8P -6AP: 4 damage, 3 drain

--

Force 6 (X)bolt vs upgraded joe (W3): 3 damage, 3 drain

Force 6 Lightning Bolt vs upgraded joe (B4, R6, I4, Armor 15) -- 1 net hit, 7P -6AP: 3 damage (stun only), 3 drain

--

Force 6 (X)bolt vs upgraded troll joe (W3): 3 damage, 3 drain

Force 6 Lightning Bolt vs upgraded troll joe (B10, R5, I4, Armor 15) -- 1 net hit, 7P -6AP: 1 damage (stun only), 3 drain

--

Force 6 (X)bolt vs street samurai joe (W4): 2-3 damage, 3 drain

Force 6 Lightning Bolt vs street samurai joe (B5, R9, I5, Armor 18) -- 0 net hits, 0P -0AP: 0 damage, 3 drain

While that's nice to see the math, that wasn't actually the question I was asking.
I was asking a game design question: where is it that these spells should be doing comparable damage?

I just wanted to add my tabletop experience with a shadowrun 5 magic user and spells. I've played five or six sessions with some veteran SR players who are playing non-optimized builds and I think that the mage has been coming up short. He was feeling pretty useless in combat and decided to pick up a direct damage spell in order to help his lightning bolt spell (give them wounds to lower their dodge pool). While he's only used the spell in one fight so far he already seems to regret his decision to take it.

Even his indirect spell seems underpowered (don't even get me started on his armor spell!). This seems to be mainly down to his inability to limit their dodge pool (and his poor rolling in comparison to mine). He can't perform any kind of burst, and aiming is less useful than with a gun since spellcasting is a complex action. In addition is the threat of drain and sustaining spells. I believe he rolls 11 dice for attacking with spells and I don't think he'll be able to increase it for some time. The real shame is a lack of fetishes to temporarily increase dice pools like in past editions, reagents upping limit is only really useful in high drain situations.

He realized pretty early on it was just stupid to try and sustain the (useless) armor spell he had, 3 or 4 more armor dice don't seem worth 2 attack dice. You are much less likely to shrug off damage in this edition, meaning getting hurt will almost certainly start the slippery slope towards death. And while I like it, it places a real premium on things that keep you from being hit or make the other guy easier to hit rather than anything to do with damage.

The worst part is that there is no simpler way to raise his attack pool, especially for those times it really matters (like a main guy from the 2nd sprawl wilds adventure who killed him, forcing him to use edge). He only ended up with one edge which he just lost so that isn't an option. And it's not like he min-maxed to get that, he just wanted an elf mage with 6 magic.

His only options for raising his pool are to increase spellcasting skill (12 karma for 1 dice?) initiates AND increase his magic (35 karma + 13?), get a focus (a lot of nuyen on top of bonding) or possibly specialize (given his archetype he certainly wouldn't specialize in combat spells). The biggest problem seems to be if he were using a gun he could upgrade the gun, ammo, accessories, or augments in addition to skills/attributes, but the only equivalent for spellslingers are expensive foci. This niche used to be taken up by learning higher force spells and using fetishes. It's not like I want him to wipe out every encounter on his own, and it's not like the rest of the team made combat monsters that make him look pathetic. The problem is that a gun just seems better than a spell.

Even in theory the gun wielder seems more effective:

A force 6 lightning bolt with 11 dice is 3 or 4 successes on average, but the bad guys seem to nearly always dodge it. Actually my player seems to get more grazing hits than anything else making it unfortunate that the stun effect of his spell needs to do damage to stun them unlike shock gloves or the like. I've only thrown opposition from printed sources as well (sprawl wilds and the core book) so it's not like these are guys with huge dodge pools. Even if the mook only dodges his average 2 or 3 successes he still faces only 7 damage, though the armor piercing is great at high force (the risk of drain also goes up though) . A ganger mook rolls 8 dice against force 6, so takes an average 4 or 5 damage with a (minor) stun effect. Whereas with a max-power (the weapon the mook has) and the same pool of 11 semi-auto burst for the equivalent action means an average of 1 more net success, so 9 damage against 13 dodge pool means is close to 5 damage on average.

I find these pretty comparable, especially given the stun effect. The gun user has easily available explosive ammo however, not to mention smartlink would be cheaper than a focus. He also hits more often since he removes dodge dice with bursts which gives him more opportunities to injure his opponent thus beginning the injury modifiers earlier. Also background count and sustaining remove dice from the magic user, and there are not similar penalties to the gun user.

Sorry for the rambling.
cliff notes: Yeah, magic seems too crappy in combat.

That's always been the case.



I'm not sure anyone can make a non-optimised magician for combat and then complain that their bad at combat. Taking manipulation and making the opposition shoot each other is probably your best option anyway. Yes you can optimise guns for combat but I don't see how that's any different. Straight up your mage friend could specialise in combat spells, get a mentor spirit and a force 3 spellcasting focus for not a huge karma cost for an extra 7 dice and keep a bound spirit around for an extra few when you really want them to count.



What opposition mooks average 4 dice for defence checks? Maybe your mage needs to invest in elemental AoE spells? No dodge allowed. Maybe they should focus on making the other guys jobs easier? Focus on spirits do do all fighting?

Being a magician is not about being awesome at everything anymore. It requires specialisation. That I think is a good thing.

Notable, the Armour spell and Mystic Armour power have been indirectly nerfed as, due to shifting damage and armour values, a much higher roll or Rank is required for it to be effective. Now, it needs to give 9 armour to be equal to an armour vest, against 6 before.

You can think that is good or bad, but you cannot argue that it isn't different. That said, a Mage who doesn't devote himself to combat is SUPPOSED to be worse at it than the street sam who does.

A focused combat mage has a serious edge on a street sam in terms of flexibility.

A street sam has, what, 8 offensive combat skills (Firearms group, melee group, throwing, heavy weapons), with optional archery on top of that for total flexibility. ignoring one or more of those skills reduces their flexibility.

A combat mage has one specialization of one skill. with the right spells that can be melee, ranged and heavy weapons, lethal and non lethal, plus is more concealable than any gun unless you're being assensed.

Now on to bonuses: A street sam can get +2 from smartlink, +1 reflex recorder, and up to +4 in attribute boosts. A mage has theoretically unlimited bonuses from a focus, though granted they have to pay through the nose for them. On the flip side, that bonus is to all their combat skills (A smartlink will only help a sam with range weapons, reflex recorders need to be purchased at 1 per skill.)

The main advantage Street sams have is higher damage output. A missile launcher is unmatched by any spell a normal caster can muster, no lightning bolt is as hard to dodge as a full auto spray. The combat mage pays for being able to throw everything into one skill by needing to do so to match damage with conventional weapons. Everything has a price, remember?

I want to be clear here, this is a mage who is 'not devoted to combat' (by not having a focus or specialty I guess? what else can he have other than those and the spells?) being worse than a guy a skill, an attribute and a basic pistol.



Perhaps armor was too powerful before, but it used to actually stop bullets. Not all the time, but it made small guns less of a worry. That you would need 9 successes (at force 9) to be as effective as force 6 with 1 success in editions before 4th does mean that armor is a lot less powerful a spell than it was.

At force 6 you're dealing damage just under most heavy pistols (6P, -6 AP) with an indirect spell. Odds on your average runner mage has skill 6 and magic 6. that's 12 dice. To match up our 'guy with a skill, an attribute and a basic pistol' has skill 6 and attribute 6 as well (your comment specifically disallowed aiming aids).

That's not a minor investment, and the guy with the pistol can ONLY use his skill for his pistol.

You used to be able to soak low level firearms with the armor spell a lot better. While playing the game it has become clear that you take damage from being hit far more often than in SR 2-3, which is what I meant to say. soaking a poor shot from a poor gun happened a lot more before. Without staging and with the high base damage on weapons you will take some damage from nearly every hit (every hit for many characters), this was not the case before.




To be clear, he is non-optimized for combat only because he lacks a specialty (+2 dice), otherwise he should be useful. This isn't a 4 magic 3 skill kind of guy. I am not saying an optimized gun user is better, I am saying a similar gun user is better. He wants to play a mage, and mentor spirits seem like a replacement for totems for shaman so I don't think it is something he would do. Also, that 7 dice would only make (on average, but his limit doesn't have room for too many more) him equal to a guy with a slightly better gun or ammo, say an assault rifle with explosive and choosing not to long burst for whatever reason.




The numbers are all from the core book and the lowest level ganger therein.

I'd just like to see mages be as useful with magic (at a risk of drain) as they would be with a pistol when in combat. Having played the game, it seems clear that they are a bit underpowered.

I'm not disallowing anything, I'm pointing out that those aiming aids put a gun guy over the magic guy. I showed the numbers for a force 6 with 11 dice, and a guy with 11 pistol dice is right there with him BEFORE ammo, augments, or bursts, all of which are cheap than foci and readily available. Not to mention that is with a basic pistol. Those 11 dice are easy enough to get with the lowest level ganger's skills, just use explosive ammo and you made up the difference. So you don't need a guy with a skill, an attribute and a pistol, I was wrong, you need a mook with a pistol and some ammo.

Maybe my experience is weird, but after a half dozen fights, the mage seems much less powerful than he should be. Not just less powerful than he would've been under 2nd/3rd, but also than the other runners, neither of which are optimized either. One is a decker with smartlink and a gun skill. At other people's tables are the combat spells useful? Or are mages better off using manipulation and puppeteering every time? Or just summoning spirits? It's not the mage who is underpowered, it is the spells since he could just summon spirits or use aoe even though his conjuring is lower than his spellcasting.

And can that pistol skill also let you fly? control minds? heal? Defend yourself?

Is there ammunition that sets people on fire? covers them with acid? hits everyone in an area with no chance to dodge?

The pistol skill can do one thing: shoot people with pistols.
The spellcasting skill can do pretty much anything.

So lets factor in ammunition: Ares predator with Stick and Shock vs mage with lightning.

Force 6 is 6P -6 AP.
Predator is 6S -5 AP.

Both have identical elemental effects.

The pistol guy has +1/+2 dice due to smartlink, with otherwise identical investment. That's a fairly minimal difference. Start factoring in range and you will find that the mage begins to pull ahead.

With both using a complex action (semi-automatic burst-standard spellcasting) the effective difference is 2-3 dice (factoring in AP difference). Not inconsiderable, but considering the flexibility of the spellcasting skill that's an acceptable difference.

There's a certain amount of deferred power in the magician, since he can more easily jack his dice pool up over time. A Force 6 Spellcasting (Combat) Focus only costs 24,000 nuyen and 12 Karma. They're harder to get than gun mods, but also better. 12 dice can become 18 in a hurry (or 14 or 15 in a bit more of a hurry), and far less expensive than the Agility augmentations.

So a mage with Magic 6, Skill 6, Specialization, and say a Force 4 Focus will be rolling 18 dice (for an average 6 hits), which takes a normal person Agility 6, Skill 6, Specialization, Smartlink (online of course), and +2 from augmentations (at least 40,000 nuyen) to pull off.

And don't forget that with that you can throw anything from a 5 damage Stunbolt (probably drain-free) to a Force 12 Ball Lightning (15P -12AP blast, probably needing to lie down afterwards) that will turn everyone in a large room into soup.

You are right that they are comparable. The mage has a risk of drain, and throws a few less dice. However, he does have access to a huge number of other tricks as you point out. The problem isn't with the mage, I have sidetracked myself in all thses posts with some minutia. The problem is that this same mage would be better off summoning even though his conjuring is lower than his spellcasting, using manipulation magic, or even using aoe spells. Not just sometimes but all the time. I've just realized after a few sessions that it wasn't just the way the dice were coming up that made the mage weak in combat. It is that indirect and direct combat spells are too weak. They are weaker than all of his alternatives. If he used a submachine gun on long burst and upped his gun skill from 1 to 2 (less karma than a focus) he might do better in combat than he does using combat spells. He would need gas vent 3 for the recoil, but he could also use a premium ammo and smart goggle system.

(ingram smart gun, 5 pool from skill and attribute + 1 for smart system, explosive ammo, 9p -1ap, long burst gives 2 recoil with str 3 character, 3 dice averages 1 hit, opposition mook ganger rolls 2 to dodge with burst modifier so you do hit less often, but if you hit at 10p -1ap he gets 13 dice to resist average 4 hits takes 6 damage instead of 4)



I don't think I realized how the new (to me) linear cost made high level foci mroe tenable. I'm only left wondering if the direct and indirect damage spells aren't underpowered compared to spirits, aoe, or other magic like manipulation. I think a focus and that 6th point in spellcasting will help him a bit, but by that point the hacker with a gun might have the ares alpha he wants...

I see no problem with the most effective weapons in the world being good at what they do.

Magics main advantage to my mind is the secondary effects. Name one person you know who won't be hindered in a fight if they were set on fire.

Chargen Devoted Combat Mage goes something like Magic 6, Spellcasting (Combat) 6 ((IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) , +2 from a Mentor Spirit, +3 from a Power Focus (or +4 from a Spell Focus, but the Power Focus helps in ways you'll see in a moment), along with the Summoning pool to get a decent spirit to help fight, Alchemy 4-6 with a Combat or Health specialization (Health for things like Increase Attribute, Increase Reflexes, Heal, and so on), and a spell and preparation selection to back that up (including area indirects, as well as Manipulations and/or Illusions for battlefield control).

That's 19 dice for Combat spells, 15 for other spells, something like 13+ Conjuring dice, and 13-19 Alchemy dice (with Alchemy (Health) 6 ((IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) and a Combat Mentor Spirit, its 17 for Health and Combat, and 15 for everything else)...

In any case, part of the value of Lightning Bolt is its control effect and the Matrix Damage it deals (great way for the mage to cooperate with the decker to deal with an enemy rigger...); these things can make it a lot more valuable than straight damage. If you're not a Mage truly built for combat, you should be worse than a guy with the same skill rating and the same attribute rating using a gun, because that attribute and skill don't have as much versatility.

(And on an aside, that build-stub sounds awesome and now I want to figure a character to fit it)

It will be out a few years after the errata to Bogota! is released. The errata will be called SR5a, and will be available for download for the low, low price of $20. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Chuck Norris

Before, a spell could potentially do 10 damage and one-hit KO a goon (remember, hits, not just net hits, were capped. Someone casting a Force: 5 spell needed 5 hits, plus the target getting no hits, to do 10 damage) - just like a heavy pistol, except that the heavy pistol got two shots. If a combat spell, at best, can only do a few boxes of damage, especially when firearms damage has been increased, then combat spells are no longer a very useful option. In other words, they have been hit too hard with the nerf bat. Especially when spirits and mental manipulation spells, which were always more potentially unbalancing, have been left relatively untouched.