Direct Combat Spells, A few questions. Options

[crash2029]

Well mainly one. When you cast a direct combat spell, the defender rolls the relevant attribute and you compare hits. If defender gets more spell fizzles. If caster gets more hits spell takes effect with force + net hits effect. Question is: does the defender get to resist damage now or do they automatically take force + net hits?

None of the text I have read on spell summary clearly says what happens at the "Determine Effect" step with regards to damage and resistance.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Jaid]

the defender gets no damage resist against direct combat spells. (sucks to be them)

[Fortune]

[Whipstitch]

Yes, which is why direct combat spells have an annoying tendency to fizzle out at bad times; they're truly an all or nothing affair. That said, I still prefer them over indirect combat spells and their high drain values, even if indirect spells are merely staged down by counterspelling rather than completely resisted outright. Shadowrun's a pretty lethal game, after all. Often times you need to take the gamble and use direct spells since it's highly dangerous to let even amateurs shoot at you for more than a pass or two, and direct spells hit like trucks when they hit at all.

[Jaid]

actually, the drain on indirect spells isn't that bad. it's the elemental spells that have unpleasant drain. in fact, if you look in your copy of street magic (assuming you have one) you will find that direct vs indirect has no difference in drain code.

for example, compare punch/clout/blast to death touch/manabolt/manaball, or even shatter/powerbolt/powerball (which actually have a higher drain code).

[Whipstitch]

That's true, but then the silly bastards went and made it so that "blast" is an elemental effect in Street Magic and I haven't been able to talk my gm into letting me make an Indirect non-elemental spell ever since. He just always shrugs and says that you have to be hitting them with something or else it's not really indirect, is it?

[MaxMahem]

Just tell him its magic. They are getting hit by 'magic' some sort of unspecified 'magical' force, none elemental in nature. Maybe you just conjure a ball of pure 'death' (why not it's magic after all) and send that at them. Or maybe you fire a ray that injects damage into the the targets aura hurting them. Or maybe you cause some of the 'essence' of destruction (maybe from the metaplanes?) to manifest at that location.

The exact nature of it is not important, it is magic after all. The important point is that mechanicaly you want to hurt the target but without the benefit (or cost) of the blast element effects.

Of course your GM is entirely within his rights to simply say 'it doesn't exists in my campaign,' but just trying to give you some ammunition to argue with.

[Narse]

Um... isn't the Clout® family of spells (brought to you by Aztechnology) both indirect and non-elemental? [and canon to boot!]

[Fortune]

[Whipstitch]

It's also only stun damage, which is why I never take it; half the fun of indirect spells is nuking drones with impunity.

[Narse]

Well then, just make a bitchslap family of spells that do physical damage, all the rules are right there in SM.

Edit: Ah, didn't realize that it was you who's GM wasn't keen on those spells. Sorry.

[Ryu]

Talk him into giving you a 5BP/10 karma advantage that reduces drain from your favourite kind of elemental spells by one. Thats what I worked out with one of my players.

Houserule: We agreed that direct combat spell damage is not raised by net successes. This encourages the use of high-force spells and at least some risk of drain if guranteed takedown is wanted. Stunball force 7 was easy living...

[GentlemanLoser]

[Fortune]

[DTFarstar]

If that is the way you want to play it that's cool, but that isn't what the rules say.

[hyzmarca]

[DTFarstar]

I know, though apparently phrased myself poorly in trying to represent that knowledge. I meant that you resist the spell with whatever and if you don't resist it all the way there is no soak roll as per indirect giving you a specific soak roll.

Chris

[GentlemanLoser]

My word... Then D Spells are totally broken and grossly overpowered.

A Magic 6 Mage could (just for example) overcast to 9 (for a laugh) and attack with let say 12 dice (6 Magic + 6 Sorcery) versus Willpower( I'll say 6 here) and on average have 2 net hits letting him do 11 physical damage with a Manabolt (versus a drain of 4...) and automatically kill (assuming an Body 6 Physical track) they target.

With the target's ony option being having a friendly Mage in LoS to CS them.

I don't like that one bit. :/

Edit:

It's not even about the avialaiblity of any CS. It's the binary nature of D spells.

Either they get resisted and suck,

Or the Mage hits and with enough initiaition / Over casting instantly kills thier target.

Crappy.

[kzt]

That's a feature, not a bug. :P Or so I'm told.

[GentlemanLoser]

A follow on question then.

Upon taking damage, unless otherwise noted, you are allowed a 'Damage Resistance Test'. Body + Armour to 'resist' damage (In some cases another attribute is subbed).

Where in the description of spell casting is this test noted as not being allowed?

Couldn't the "Direct Combat spells effect the target form inside, so armour does not help with resistance" be refering to the 'Damage Resistance Test' and resisting taking damage, and not resisting the opposed attack test?

Edit: ;)

To many uses of the ord 'resist' in the books! :P

[Synner]

[GentlemanLoser]

[kzt]

Lots of counterspelling. Oodles of counterspelling can make it really unlikely that a direct spell will work.

[GentlemanLoser]

And even more likely for the 12 Bod Troll (with impact armour) to fully soak/damage resist the Indirect.

Becuase you get counterpselling on that, instead of the attack opposed test.

And the indi has probably been downgraded to Stun from Physical anyay..

You might as well take the all or nothing chance of instantly killing your target with a Direct, then the chance of firsly missing with your indi (due to situational modifiers like those given above, plus whatever magic/ware they have to help them dodge the ranged attack, as it's opposed) or getting it downgraded/fully soaked/resisted even if you do hit...

[hyzmarca]