2nd ed. Sorcery Skill Doubts (silly but true), What does Sorcery in SR 2nd ed.? Options

[Perssek]

I know, I know...

It´s a pretty dumb question and you´re probably answered enough of it. But the doubt remains. I recently started playing Shadowrun again (after almost 8 years) and struck myself with this dumb problem. Let me tell you how I came into this:

The players were making their characters, I was busy helping them with it (only two of them played my previous SR campaigns, and even them weren´t very sure of what they were doing), and one of them had the brilliant (no irony implied) idea of doing a mage. Great. A mage. There´s only grinding machines in the team (two mercs, a sam, a rigger and a physAd), so a mage could be a good addition. When he goes into the skills, he asks, "it´s sorcery I use to lob spells, right?" Not very sure, but feeling that it seems right, I answer that he is correct. "Great! I gonna put a 6 in this."

In the second gaming session, I read the magic section carefully and discovered that you don´t roll sorcery to use the spells. You roll the spells themselves. And then told him that. "OK", he answered, "my spells have high force, it´s ok. But... what use has Sorcery, aside astral combat?" I couldn´t answer him. A friend of mine has the 3rd ed. corebook and said that in 3rd ed. you roll Sorcery to sling spells.

And then, next gaming sesion, I said "guys, sorry, but let´s get back to Sorcery. Use the spells power just for what they are: power reference." It was OK for them, thank God.

Am I right? I mean, I read the Spell use section in 2nd ed. more than 10 times, and it says explicitly that you roll the SPELL force. So what good is Sorcery for?

Can anyone help me?