combat mage, starting spells Options

[adair]

ha can you all help me i'm tying to refine the list of spells for my battle mage

here is what I pick let me know what you would do differently
heal
increase ref
armor
levitate
mana bolt
mana ball
improved invisible
trid phantasm( this is i'm unsure about drain is high but has been useful in the past in sr3)

he is a pure mage not a adept mage so I need to cover all bases

also someone was talking about turn into goo
what is the duration and drain

sorry for any misspelling my conlink spell ck not working right and i don't have the book..

[Jaid]

you definitely want either stunbolt or stunball.

no damage to objects, because it's stun damage, but remember: most living targets will have shorter stun tracks than physical tracks. and will is usually lower than body, which makes it easier to get past their resistance.

also, the drain on stunbolt is a joke. the kind that's only funny to the person who's using it, more specifically.

[adair]

I don't have the book so what is the change in drain from bolt to ball

[Azralon]

Balls have +2 drain over comparative bolts.

I recommend picking up one or two sustaining foci so you can be running your buffs without having to take the -2 global pool penalty for sustaining a spell. Increased Reflexes is a wonderful one to run on that thing. Improved Invisibility's situationally good too. But mostly, you might consider running two attribute boosts: Willpower and your tradition-linked attribute. That way you'll stave off drain a lot easier (and have a bigger Stun track, and heal Stun faster).

[RunnerPaul]

I reccomend picking up the a copy of the book for your own.

[adair]

even with my own copy have other look at somethings is always nice. after all to error is human and there is always the chances that things can be over look. also some people look at a problem differently then i do.

and if i had all the :nuyen: in the world. i would have it by now alass life has a way of coming up with other things like food to buy and other things. i have yet to save up the funds to get a 3rd copy for my group. that is not to says that rpg are overprice becuse i don't thank that the case

[Jaid]

oh, and depending on circumstances, mental manipulations can really save your bacon sometimes. of course, it's hard to fit in *everything* you want, so if you have already considered them and decided against, you're fine... i'm just saying you should consider them...

[Azralon]

Rule of thumb: Diversify your attack spell selection.

If you're going for a heavily-offensive caster try to fit in Lightning Bolt, Powerbolt, Manabolt, and Stunbolt. That way when you want to blast someone/something you have multiple options and can choose the most (potentially) efficient one.

Make sure you have as high of an Edge score as you can afford. Mundanes shooting people make only one roll. Spellcasters make an attack roll too, but they also make drain rolls. This means that you have more chances per combat to use Edge -- either to throw a big whammy or to keep you from falling over due to drain. Also it's not a bad idea to spend a point during the Initiative rolls to either make sure you go first or get an extra Initiative Pass (personally I recommend going first, especially if you already have a sustaining focus giving you more IPs).

A combat mage with 3 points of Edge available can put a sudden, massive, frontloaded hurt on a target or two. Make sure you go first (1 Edge), then spend Edge on the high-Force Spellcasting roll (either to reroll failures or get bonus dice & reroll sixes) to insure big damage. Then spend Edge to better soak the drain of the high-Force mojo. Hopefully at that point you've either dropped your target or at least visited enough penalties upon them to where their counterattack will be significantly lessened.

That being said, Stunball is the cheapest way to visit a lot of penalties upon a lot of guys at once. Yeah, it's only Stun, but it's easy on the drain and will drop (most) targets just as handily as doing Physical damage. Ball Lightning is better at this due to the "tazer" effect, but hoo-boy is the drain potent.

Above all, try to cast from behind cover! Or cast, then run around a corner. This applies even if you think you're heavily armored or hard to hit. All hail the mighty periscope.