in this particular instance, DV was meant to mean drain value i think.

but do not forget the after effects!! If you cast mana static force 4 or 5, then your magic and casting ability for the remainder of the scene would be severely crippled. It takes hours to dissipate! You can cast slaughter spirit, wipe out the "air support" and then continue to happily blast the rest of the opposition.

But hey, I am actually playing devil's advocate, I do not really mind what spell is better. I like both.

Cheers,

Max

Manastatic at force 5 (because even numbers are for suckers) has a drain value of 6. You'll want 18 drain resistance dice to to go with that. For that you get to totally kill a force 4 or lesser spirit while merely inconveniencing everyone else. It's a strong play, but whipping up a force 4 spirit isn't exactly hard or time consuming either, so I fail to see what the hullabaloo is about.

Only if you sustain it for long enough for it to become "Permanent". Otherwise it drops when you want it to (or if you're in its area and it is of higher force than your Magic, it drops just after it's taken effect).

Not arguing either way, just keeping it from degenerating into the sort of guessing game that I sometimes confuse myself into.

1. All plans where you just need to have 8+ hits are bad. More so if you want those for casting AND drain.

2. Casting a even-lower-drain version of manaball is a no-brainer for those who can reliably come close to 8 hits on said tests.


Use Mana Static to create areas that are safe from astral attack. Even mundanes can handle force 3((IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) spirits, and lower force ratings are taken care of automatically. If the spirit you want to fight is already there, use the more efficient mana-based direct combat spells.

(Did I mention that I love the sensing metamagic? Force 5 mana static = Initiate degree times 2.5 kilometers warning radius. Just saying.)

Yeah. DV is Drain Value. I fail to see how you could possibly be confused by this, especially since you yourself used the exact same terminology in regards to the Drain Value of the two spells in the very post I quoted.

I'm not sure that having one really great spell for nuking spirits and hampering magic makes it the 'best spell in the game'. Best spell for nuking dudes, yes. But the practical applications are very limited when compared with Trid Spec, Control Thoughts, Physical Mask, Influence... All kinds of stuff.

My mistake. I misread your post.

My argument was that whilst your three stacking Slaughters all deal damage, which the Spirits get to resist with the same pool each time, the Mana Static has no possible resistance at all. I missed that you were comparing cost rather than effect.

As for comparing cost, however, don't forget that each additional spell adds +1 to the Drain of all the spells you cast.

So you didn't actually read my post at all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I did take that into account. I even gave you the exact figures for each spell. Let's recap ...

With three Slaughter Spirit spells at Force 5, with a base DV (Drain Value) of F/2+1, or 3, modified by +2 DV (Drain Value) for two additional spells means that each spell would have a DV (Drain Value) of 5. The Drain from each of these spells is resisted with the caster's full Pool.

One Mana Static cast at Force 8 has a DV (Drain Value) of F/2+4, or 8. This is a lot harder than the three previous Drain resistance tests above.

Also, with Mana Static, for it to be a one-shot kill for Force 8 Spirits (the Spirit level most commonly being used in this thread for whatever reason), you would need a Spellcasting Pool of 24 to do so with any regularity. You would then need a similarly-sized Drain Resistance Pool to consistently shrug off the Drain. And if you don't manage to pull of a one shot kill (8 successes), the Spirits can move out of the AoE without too much trouble and be right back to full strength again.

With the Slaughter Spirit spells, yes the Spirit gets to resist with Willpower (+ Magical Guard or Counterspelling, if either are available), but it has to do it multiple times, and it only takes one net success for each spell to do 6 boxes of damage. Fail by only a single success on only two of the spells and the Spirit is toast, and even if it doesn't the odds are good that the Spirit is damaged in the process. And this applies to every Spirit in the AoE.

See, I was assuming you'd be casting Mana Static at the same force as the Slaughters. It still takes two good hits with a slaughter to take down a Force 5 spirit, whereas Force 5 Mana-Static, if you get the hits on the test, will be an instant kill.

Also, I'm not sure about your math. Doesn't Drain round up like everything else?

Bare in mind, I want to be proven wrong here; I'm not looking to prove that I've found the ultimate cheat or something.
Unfortunately what I'm really looking for is some way of reigning in Mana-Static, which their doesn't seem to be without house ruling it. Yes, there are other spells which are more effective under specific circumstances, but that doesn't stop the Troll mage in my party from using Mana-Static to pretty much wipe out every magical encounter he comes up against (being a Troll, he's happy to drop his magic to 1, and then punch the enemy mage to death.

Drain is always rounded down.

Why should someone cast Slaughter Spirit at Force 5? If one could cast Mana static 5 instead (drain 6), at least force 11 would be acceptable. Which just happens to be the size of a force 5 spirits condition monitor. One net hit is pretty easy to achieve against 10 resisting dice.

We were discussing Force 8 Spirits (because that was the Spirit level others were using as an example), as I mentioned a couple of times.

Spellcasting hits (not net hits, but total hits) are limited to the Force of the spell. The most hits you could get with a Force 5 spell is 5, regardless of Dice Pool (unless you spend Edge in a specific manner).

A Force 5 Mana Static will merely piss of a Force 8 Spirit until he gets out of the AoE, which should take about one Initiative Pass or so, because the maximum Background Count generated would be 5. You need to have the Force at least equal to the number of hits you require.



Drain rounds down!

continuing with the example of force 8 spirits, lets say a group face a powerful mage who summons out a Force 8 spirit, mana static might do a great job, even if not achivieng 8 hits it will reduce the Mage capability hardly and the spirts inmunity to normal weapon will be reduced so the rest of the group can affect it easyly.

EDIT: it hasnt to be a powerful mage to summon a force 8 spirit.

But it is still a fixed location, which the mage and/or Spirit can move out of at will. Sure, the location can be moved before the permanent effect sets in (something I hope is fixed in future errata), but it still requires an action to do so, and doesn't prevent the targets from moving yet again out of the area of effect.

I always thought that to be the case. But what about this answer from the last Shadowrun chat transcript?

Link!

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...;may+chat\

Thank you! I apparently missed that answer.

Unless there's a cyber samuria with a gun nearby. Force 8 is hard to kill (I tried). Force 6 is relatively easy (with APDS and an assualt riffle).

True. I'm not at all discounting the usefulness of Mana Static. Merely pointing out that it does have drawbacks, and is not the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to spells in general, or even Spirit-killing in particular. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Now the trick is to get everyone in the AoE... indoors you are pretty likely to kill your own magic. If you don´t, the spirit will happily leave the AoE to attack you at full force. The maximum immediately effective force is (your magic -1), because you need to sustain the spell as long as the spirit is alive. While you do that, all awakened chars of the group are practically neutered. Easy to use is... different.

That said We are basically looking at 2 situations mopping up lots F4ish spirits, and pelting F8 spirits.

2 slaughter spirit spells have a very good chance of knocking out a ton of spirits, as does mana static. The difference is that Mana Static only relies on one roll. If you are wiping out gobs of spirits, there is a very good chance a couple spirits get lucky and win one or both resist rolls versus slaughter spirits. If you nail your spell casting roll with mana static though they are just dead - period. They can't get lucky versus background count. If you don't nail it you can spend one edge almost certainly nail the roll. So what you are looking here is a little more reliability for extra drain. I'd say that mana static is better because it has more uses and spirit killing and in the long run as a magician trends to infinity they can laugh at 6S drain. What clenches this for me though, is that after the fairly comparable first round, with mana static you get another 9 rounds where your can spend a complex action to move the effect of the sustained spell and nuke any spirits you see with a complex action(the same as spell casting) without further drain. Using movement to zoom around a big hive instagibing spirits with a drainless AoE effect for 9 rounds is crazy buff.

Now versus that force 8 spirit, I'd also take mana static. Honestly if your team isn't at least risking a 100% fatalities from an encounter with an F8 spirit, your team has enough magical ability to win any small group that doesn't have counter spelling. Maybe you can win them with mental manipulation, turn to goo, influence, illusions, or good old stun ball, some how you can... most of the time. This is why at my table (if no where else) you really aren't going to see F8 spirits without counter spelling. An optimized starting magician with a DP around 14 (soft caps and 2 +2s from somewhere) has no real hope hit the spirit twice with a split DP. Even without out counterspelling and no penalties the spirit has very comparable resist dice to the casting pool. And as I remember Fortune telling me in regards to splitting DP, penalties are more common than bonuses. If you edge on both tests and the spirit doesn't do the same (which they SM suggests they would to avoid disruption) a one shot is very possible, but far from guaranteed. Net results for slaughter spirit: Likely nothing, good luck/favorable conditions could easily lead to 50%-75% damage with -2 to -4 wound penalties, 1 shot possible but extremely unlikely even spending 2 edge.

Now let's look at mana static. A Spell casting DP of 14 will reliable yield 4+ hits without edge. That alone will automatically debuff an F8 spirit to the point that a sam or even a good drone acting autonomously can reliably drop it on one action phase. With edge you expect to get background count of around 7 14 -> 4 hits/10 misses rerolled to 7 hits. . Again, the spirit can not counter this use of edge by spending its own edge so it just gets to eat it. The 7 hits is actually low, if you add up the dice I rounded down and the rule of 6, the expected result is actually slightly higher than 8. Net results: Reliable debuffing to the point a teammate, a really good drone, or a specifically optimized F5 spirit, could 1 shot it reliably. With edge, you can expect crippling rebuffs and 1 shots are common.

totally agree, was exactly my point, agains high force spirit, with the correct organization of the group, taking action one right after the other its the winning strategy.

Relying on Edge expenditure when making calculations and comparisons (especially when it is only being applied to one side of the equation) just seems wrong to me.

I agree with fortune that slaughter spirits is probably better at taking out spirits. I'd still take mana static because it takes out people using foci to boost themselves to crazy town and shuts down mages in general by making them pretty much unable to cast (unless your GM routinely uses magic 11 mages) at force 5. Heck at force 3 which is pretty weak, it makes people with magic 5 have to overcast to get at best, a F1 spell, and M6 can get force 3.

My post from the nerfing thread dealing with this topic ...