Resisting Drain, How is it possible? Options

[Banaticus]

I'm new to SR4 and magical characters in Shadowrun. How is it possible to resist drain?

Let's say that a person has an attribute and skill both at 6. That's 12. I can expect 1/3 of those dice to be successes, for 3 successes. But I can expect 1/6 of those dice to be 1's, for 2 1's. That a total of only 1 net success, right? How then can someone resist anything higher than 1 drain?

[Serbitar]

1s dont reduce hits. As long as you dont glitch, just ignore 1s.

And BTW 12/3 = 4 not 3.

[Butterblume]

Since skill has nothing to do with resisting drain, I think you misread something somewhere ;).

[Banaticus]

Ok, instead of "an attribute and skill both at 6." I should have said "an attribute and an attribute both at 6." :)

So, since drain is resisted by a double attribute roll and since attributes are pretty expensive to raise and since it requires three extra dice to give an average of one more success, the drain of a spell would seem to be the "cap" for magic? The one thing that's harder to overcome than anything else?

[lorechaser]

Drain is the primary limiter, yes.

Especially since you can overcast for twice your magic value, but you take physical damage.

Drain is used when balancing spells as well - more powerful spells have higher drain, more focused have less.

Note also that drain cannot be healed by magical means!

[Demerzel]

Add centering once you initiate.

More like the limiter than the cap. You can shoot some big loads and just eat the pain, but you'll have to stop sooner than if you fire off a lot of smaller spells. Stun damage is just a matter of a coupple hours rest.

[knasser]

Typically in Shadowrun, magic follows a principle of plenty of power, but more risk. While a samurai can continue to blast away all day with his SMG, the mage who gets carried away is likely to hurt himself sooner or later. The same principle applies even more so to summoning high force spirits.

[Blog]

Drain (as well as fading [what technomancers have to do]) are limiters.

Its to make you consider the following...
I could nuke em with a force 8 spell, or several force 3 spells. One has you putting more of your 'self' on the line the other is a lot safer but takes more time. Striking the balance and adding in a little luck (or edge) makes it all turn out ok.

[MYST1C]

[Thanee]

There are some spells, which have such a high Drain, that they become essentially useless, but the vast majority of spells is pretty easy to cast. Some are actually too easy to cast (Stun Bolt is the prime example here; a Force 5 Stun Bolt does only 1 DV of Drain; a Force 9 is at a meager 3 DV).

Besides, what's the deal with taking a few boxes of stun damage?

It's not like you are supposed to cast all your spells without ever suffering a single box of damage, if that was the case, there would be no point for a Drain rule in the first place. ;)

High Force spells are very powerful, there needs to be a downside to them. You can always cast spells at a lower Force to keep Drain managable. It's not like low Force spells do nothing... in many cases Force 3-5 is already very good.

Besides you can get 2 extra dice for using a fetish with a spell (must decide when learning the spell), and you can get Positive Qualities to help against Drain, and I'm sure there's more.

And you can always use Edge on a few tough rolls, or when you really don't want to take damage in a situation. Did so just recently, when summoning a Force 4 spirit produced a rather unexpected 6 DV Drain... soaked it all up, thanks to Edge. :)

Bye
Thanee

[Ravor]

In my opinion the following cyber/bio are 'must-have' for Mages, Magic-Loss be damned....

Cybereyes (R 3+) Remember that Vision Mods you've paid Essence for counts as natural vision.

Pain Editor Drain? What a puny little thing you are with your Stun Damage, I laugh at thee! --Well at least for a little while or until I overcast.

Sleep Regulator Now I actually have the time for my spell research, warding rituals, ect... Plus I think it stacks with the Anti-Sleep spells in Street Magic.

And for your Cyber-Mage who doesn't mind burning a little more Magic or maybe a rich mage with access to better grades of cyber/bio.

Datajack A DNI interface plus virtually unlimited memory to store all of your research notes/ect beats using nasty old trodes in my opinion, just remember to pay the extra 50 Y for a Skin-Link.

Cerebral Boosters If you're a true Mage and not one of those tree-hugging Shamans and want a extra help with Drain then this is the Bio for you, besides, what self-respecting Mage doesn't want to be an annoying know-it-all at parties?

Platelet Factories Who doesn't want to be able to shrug off part of your damage, plus I think that it even works on Drain.

Plus in my opinion any self respecting Will-Worker needs to take Focused Concentration at character creation (Personally as long as a character has a Ranked Quality I allow them to improve it with Karma without a fuss.) and pick up Centering as their first Meta-Magic...

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As for the human Drain Machine...

Willpower 7 (Remember the Quality that allows you to exceed your Racial Max by one.)
Logic 9 Cerebral Booster (R3)
Focused Concentration 3
Centering ?

Suddenly Drain doesn't look quite as scary when you are rolling 19+ Dice to resist it, although be warned that you've just sunk alot of Build Points, Karma, Credits, and 1-2 Magic in order to be able to do it and that the effort might not be considered worth the end result when compared to what you'd be able to achieve if you instead spent them elsewhere...

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*Edit

As written I don't think Increase Stat is worth it as it takes far too many sucesses to be useful, although if changed then carrying two Sustaining Foci increasing both of your Drain Resistors would be nice plus you could drop the Cerebral Boosters for the extra Essence.