Powerbolt or Lightning Bolt?, Which is better? Options

[Buster]

If you wanted an "all-purpose" offensive spell that was optimized for taking out:

• drones,
• vehicles,
• weapons,
• doors,
• hand-cuffs,
• walls,
• and the occasional mage-geek

Do you prefer Powerbolt or Lightning Bolt (or something better) and why?

[laughingowl]

Powerbolt is generally better (being direct damage so force is automatic damage), IMO.


Lightingbolt is better if there is also somebody providing spell defense (close to your skill) as with spell defense powerbolt is likely to fail altogether, while lighting bolt is much more likely to do 'something'

[hobgoblin]

do not the direct damage spells have to overcome some kind of resistance when attacking manufactured things?

[Jack Kain]

[Jaid]

i would also say powerbolt. the only important part of lightning bolt (ie the stunning effect) is just as easy to duplicate with a taser, stick-n-shock ammo, etc.

also, your powerbolt can be up to 4 points of force higher than a lightning bolt for the same drain, iirc.

[Jack Kain]

[Ravor]

Well if given the choice between Powerbolt or Lightingbolt, Firedart, or any of the other indirect combat spells I'll take the latter every time because I'd rather face 1/2 Impact, ect then the ORT table and its my reading of the FAQ's Ruling on Indirect Combat Spells that Called Shots should be allowed.

[knasser]

[Jack Kain]

The choice isn't meaningful right now. If your in combat direct always wins.

If the indirect combat spells had a lower drain you'd pick them for there lower drain and pick the direct combat spells for the higher destructive power.

[Konsaki]

The reason indirect spells have the higher drain is because you are creating an element and shooting it out instead of direct 'force'. The element spells have secondary effects as well to offset the higher drain.

Here are the ones from the BBB:

Fire: Cooks off ammo, grenades, explosives and causes fires
Lightning: Stuns the target like a tazer and causes electronics to fry
Kinetic (Clout): Pure Kinetic force hits for physical Stun damage
Acid: Melts things that have their Object Resistance beat, like armor and equipment


Also, these elemental spells are Indirect, which means that you dont have to see the target to hit it with an AOE. With direct combat spells you have to be able to see the aura of the target.
Guards who cower behind desks and around corners arnt safe from an elemental mage while they are generally safe from a direct combat mage if they just dont stick their heads up.

[knasser]

[FrankTrollman]

[Glyph]

Lightning bolt is good for taking out vehicles and drones, and is more useful against high-counterspelling situations like Frank talked about. But powerbolt still has more utility for things like blasting through doors and destroying items. It may not be the best spell for everything on that list, but it is useful for everything on the list. So, its versatility and lower drain edge it out over lightning bolt, for me.

[sunnyside]

OK a couple rule things you'll really want to keep in mind.

The biggest thing is that DD spells aren't treated like range combat, no called shots or any of that. They affect the whole of a thing. I.E. you can't shoot a wheel, you have to hit the whole vehicle.


Now, I noticed you mentioned hitting walls. Now think about that a moment. You can't target part of a thing. You have to target the whole thing. Meaning you have to take down the whole wall (building whatever). Now you'll probably be able to beat the object resistance to damage the building. But a building probably has hundreds or thousands of boxes on it's physical damage track.

You'll be there a while.

Doors are a bit less clear. But in my mind you absolutly can't target the door like iris in someones eye, and you can't target the door on a car, so again unless it's been unscrewed or something you can't target a door in a building either. You're again hitting the whole building.

Also the LOS thing can be a bitch. No blind fire with DD spells. You have to see the thing. When smoke grenades start dropping things can get exciting. And remember with smartlinks people can, and security personel love, to shoot around corners without exposing themselves. You could nuke their gun of course. But they can get another.

Oh and don't forget the highest target number in the object resistance table is 4+. Not four, four plus. Every so often your GM will remember that.

[odinson]

[Ravor]

[hobgoblin]

[sunnyside]

Well Ravor's advice for having a meta race or eyemods is on whatever spell you use.

But you could just hold onto the handle. You could also just set it on the floor for surpresiveor underbarrel grenade launcher fire.

But,really, you should know about. http://www.cornershot.com/

Also to be fair the issues I brought up had already been mentioned. I just figured without elaboration the point wasn't clear.

[hobgoblin]

sorry, i should have properly shown where the quote was from.

and im aware of cornershot (it showed on the program future warfare on discovery iirc).

but one partially annoying thing about that system is that its based on a
extended stock so to speak. if one look at the animation on the page it appears to hold a glock. if one wants to use it with something like a mp5 it becomes very big, very fast. this because your adding something the length of a smg, behind a smg...

hmm, but now that i think about it, a glock may well do fine if its equipped with a extended clip or something.

[sunnyside]

Of course in SR it would be something more like a preditor.

And assault rifles on the thing do get to be a bit much
http://www.cornershot.com/default.asp?cati...8-F039CA6DF358}

But beyond that just take a regular MP5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_&_Koch_MP5

Since you don't have to pull the trigger you can just crouch down in the middle of some cube farm holding the clip and the bottom part of the handle and fire away over the top of the cub walls. (preferably with multiple walls between you and the runners.

Or just poke the barrel through the drywall next to some substantial structural element to give you some cover (but at the least you'd get blind fire bonuses and maybe a surprise shot just poking through drywall anywhere.)

And realistically you'd think other systems would have been invented as well to acheive purposes similar to the cornershot.

The point is that most regular security(or police) is just going to try and pin runners down until SWAT or corp special forces can move in.

Lightning bolt will hit the person holding the weapon with some secondary effects.(and a little off topic powerball wouldn't get them either, ball lightning would get them and their little dog too.)

Actually I just noticed in the LB spell description that it lists the damage as P whereas on 154 electrical damage does stun. What gives? I'd always had it do stun.

Oh and also what do the rest of you do for damage on weapons. By RAW I set "body" of the things to about 1 (about minidrone sized things) which still gives them 9 boxes of physical track for every 3 you get a negative modifier applying to using the thing. I.e. if a spell slinger is throwing powerbolts and at a gun and is throwing 10 die. Some of the time they'll biff on making the threshold of 3. When they do get over with a success or two they'll do 6 or 7 points of damage. So the thing is still fireing just at -2.

[Buster]

High amp electricity definitely does lethal damage. Lots of people killed by high tension wires and real life lightning bolts every year. I have no idea why that line is in the SR. They must have meant it just for non-lethal weapons like tasers and shock gloves.

Maybe it'll be fixed in the 5th printing?

[toturi]

[HappyDaze]

Just as Cold and Ice are seperate, you could do Electricity (Stun) and Lighting (Lethal) if you feel the need.

[Jaid]

for damaging weapons, i would use barrier ratings and related rules sunnyside.

[Garrowolf]

Actually what I think would make sense for lightning effects is any force 3 and below is stun and above that is lethal