Force 10 Manaballs, Should I be worried Options

[The Jopp]

[Gomez]

In my second game, the mage of the group threw a Force 10 Stunball at a dozen go gangers who where chasing them on motorcyles. Wiped out the whole gang. :please:

And he took no damage from the drain. I am very worried.

[Clyde]

What were his stats like? Willpower 7, Logic 6? Combat spell focus? Spirit helping out?

If he was a garden variety starting character I wouldn't worry too much - he probably just got lucky on the roll. Besides, an SR3 Stunball would do Deadly level damage with no drain every time.

[Gomez]

Magic 6
Spellcasting 6 (+2 Combat Spells)

Willpower 5
Logic 5

Mentor Spirit (+2 Combat Spells)
Combat Fetish (+2 to resist Drain)

First he casts the Increase Will spell and used an Sustaining Focus to keep it going. That increased his Will to 9.

So Casting the Force 10 Stun Ball (6+6+2+2 = 16 dice)
Resisting Drain of 6 (F/2+1) (9+5+2 = 16 dice)

[James McMurray]

He spent over 1/2 of his build points (207 of them, barring any racial mods) on doing that trick, so he should be pretty good at it. On average he should have taken one point of drain (16 dice = 5 hits). It does mean he's going to be weaker in times when his magic isn't so helpful.

But always remember that last step of character creation: GM approval. If the character is too powerful for the tone of the campaign, tell the player to tone it back some.

[GingerbreadMan]

Minor Note for the GMs out there. Play the range game. A Force 10 mana ball has a 10 meter radius (20 meter diameter). Beside being obvious to everyone in site, everything within roughly 30 yards is getting baked (line of site and all that applies). Mana ball is a sphere - don't forget about those innocent victims nearby. it will help discourage rampant use of this sort of thing. (that's an 8 story building). Chances are that a few party members are within that range.

[Cain]

[James McMurray]

Also don't allow a mage without some sort of rangefinder technology (cybereyes most likely) to pick an exact spot for his balls. Make him worry about hitting friendlies sometimes. Heck, just having the group of bad guys up against a wall means the group has to be around 35 feet away to ensure none of the team members get caught in that 10m radius blast.

[JustSix]

[GingerbreadMan]

Sorry, I mean the casting is obvious, not the effect. (except the piles of dead bodies)

[Magus]

That would depend on your aspect of Magic. My hermetics vary rarely have any visual representation of spell casting other than line of site and maybe if I took a geas in 3rd vocalization. Shamanic bent mages usually are the ones that have a noticable casting. Ie shamanic mask, chanting dancing etc etc.

[Butterblume]

[Apathy]

It seems to me that the common problem with aoe damage spells is the 'aoe' part. Most of the time when I've played, either

• The opposition is too spread out, or
• you've got friendlies in the area of effect (often including yourself)

If you're in open terrain (parking lot, etc.) where you can see the enemy from plenty far away, those targets have a chance to spread out so you can't hit them all with one blast. The same applies to other aoe damage like grenades.

If you're in close terrain (cube farm in office complex) often by the time you see the enemy, he's right up on you. Then you can't cast on him without including yourself in the blast radius. Nothing like having to resist both the effects of the spell and the drain code...

Finally, magic isn't as effective in my games in general because I've pretty much ruled that all urban areas have at least a point of background count, if not more. Add in visibility modifiers from smoke grenades and partial cover, disorientation from gas grenades, unrelated injuries, [sometimes]spell defense, wards, mana barriers, [occasional] spirits using confusion, etc. and it can get really hard to cast with any certainty of success.

[Waltermandias]

The area thing is something to definately take into consideration, at least it makes the force 10 manaball a bit more situational. I am still a little concerned about the force 10 indivdual spells (manabolt, powerbolt, etc.) There are some pretty good reasons to hold off on these spells generally, but I worry about them trivializing the big scary opposition. I'm a little worried about the big impressive baddy getting one-shotted by the mage squeezing off one net hit on his casting roll. Even if the baddy's defenses are good, getting one success is still very doable, moreover, increasing his ability to withstand spells to a crazy level stops more "legitimate" uses of spells, which I certainly don't want to discourage.

More and more I worry that I may need to institute some sort of house rule concerning drain or drain whilst overcasting. Any ideas? I think the goal should be to keep spellcasting good but risky in general (the lack of drain in the game's I have been in has made me a little sad) and overcasting should be a hellaciously dangerous "OMFG I'm going to die if I don't do this" sort of thing. Basically I want a feel like in the fluff piece at the beginning of the magic chapter. The mage is pretty sure that overcasting won't kill her and needs the troll dead right fucking now! At the end the spell goes off, the troll dies, and the mage blacks out from godawful pain. That's what overcasting should be to me.

[Apathy]

There's lots of threads on this forum, and suggestions in the BBB for making magic less uber in general. In my mind, the most easily applied choices are:

• change the drain values to equal Force + x, instead of (Force/2) + x, or
• treat background count as increasing threshhold by that amount.

The second option makes magic significantly less effective, especially in toxic or aspected areas. (It really sucks to face the big-baddie on its own turf.) The first option just makes the hangover bad enough to think twice before overcasting unless there's no other choice.

That said, this is a controversial topic that nobody really agrees about on these forums.

[Gomez]

Maybe if you change the drain code when a mage overcasts to the Force+X instead of (Force/2)+X

[Dashifen]

[Dashifen]

@Waltermandias
Also, don't forget the easy house rule that drain cannot be healed (as in the spell). The RAW allow a mage to overcast a spell and then have another mage (or the same one) heal the drain away. By saying drain damage cannot be healed, while making a little extra bookkeeping for the players, makes overcasting a bit more dangerous since any drain that does occur takes on the order of days to heal rather than seconds.

[Waltermandias]

Fair enough Apathy, and we will probably just go with the higher drain values and see how that goes. We do loves us the house rules.

Oh, and as a side note, your sig is my new quote of the day.

[The Horror]

Last night my players came to realise how truly overpowered magic can be, as their mage dropped more people and faster than the min maxed street samurai ever could, and as an enemy mage gave back unto them in kind. Everyone overcasting left right and center, with no drain as a consequence.

We will definately be increasing the drain code of magic to F+x in future.

[Crusher Bob]

For you to effect anything in your AOE, you have to see it first, so the people behind you (or that you otherwise can't see) will not get effected by your spell, even if it is in the AOE.

Which leads to a rather odd bit, if your cyber eys have been hacked to GITS invisibility, you can't hit them with spells (using normal vision) either. Of course you could just astrally percieve (which can't be hacked) and lay the target to waste that way.

[Deadjester]

I am curious what the idea is behind the AOEs being bound by LOS rules.

I would think that only the point of impact would be of import to the caster, not the secondary effects.

Though I would hate to be on the receiving end of a 10F manaball I don't see why its bound so. It just seems to take away some of the realism of a AOE to me.

[James McMurray]

[Azralon]

[Deadjester]

Presently in our game, only site of impact is of import to our caster, and the AOE acts as any tech device would.

Which makes it more important and dangrous in how we use it. To use mana/stun/etc, or to not use a AOE at all when innocents are around.

We are pretty mean in a fight but we spend all our time trying to avoid one and trying to pull of runs where they never know it happend.

Last sunday we had to get hired on at a cleaning agency and actually do some real work so that we could insert some data in a company. It was funny as hell to watch our Technomancer do some actual work be for he could get to the objective.