Direct Combat Spells, A few questions. Options

[GentlemanLoser]

How about adding in a sustained Deflection on the Target as well, to reduce the Damage and chance of the Indirect Spell hitting.

Assuming that Physical Indirect Spells that attack as a Ranged Attack are classed as a Physical Ranged Attack. ;)

[DTFarstar]

I think the point we are all making here isn't that one type of combat spell is better than the other, but that they are all crappy and magic does a much better job doing things that can't be done with guns and grenades.

That said, a well placed F12 stunbolt is wonderful IF it works.

Chris

[GentlemanLoser]

I see it more like ID spells are comparable to other methods of combat.

While D spells are an unbalanced "very crap not worth your time to use" or "ZOMG overpowered IWIN" double sided coin.

Sure, you can pump CS so high that no D Spell will hit. I'm sure you could (from examples I've seen here) pump soak or combat avoidance in much the same way.

Problem is, as long as you *can* get your D Spell to land, that's it. Game over. It's far more disruptive than managing to actually land a box or two of damage on the uber soaking Troll tank.

And when people do get hit by the Troll Bow, at least they have a small chance of doing something about it, maybe, just maybe, if they roll good, it's not instant Death...

D Spells (if they don't give a Damage Resistance Test) remove that from the players hand. You get hit, you die. Nothing you can do about it. You can't even pretend to try having some hope.

And that's something I really don't like.

Maybe it's just me. ;)

[Particle_Beam]

Then people should try to use edge, and most importantly, avoid being seen as best as possible. Cover is your friend.

There is a good reason why mages are powerful and feared, but they are also rare and one of the very first targets.

It's still bettern than in SR 3, where you never stood a chance against somebody casting a mana- or stunbolt against you in the first place, while the casting mage really didn't get any damage at all, simply because he would always have more hits than you, and that's without deliberately creating a mage with tons of dices. In SR 4, he does get drain damage normally, unless twinked out to utter maximum.

People die when they have no cover and no protection. Doesn't matter if it's some silly troll bow, an assault cannon, a revolver, or a mage with manabolt.

[hyzmarca]

Actually, in SR3 it was possible to make it extremely difficult for a mage to hit you with a direct combat spell, due to the fact that the TN was your resistance stat. A SR3 magician manabolting a Willpower 2 character has a TN of 2. A magician manabolting a Willpower 8 character would have a TN of 8 and would fail more often than not. Also, shielding increased the TN by the Shielder's Initiate Grade, making it extremely effective. Spell defense, on the other hand, was less useful, due to the limited size of the Spell Pool.

Fixed casting TNs makes spell resistence stats and Shielding far less powerful in SR4, but the it does make counterspelling more useful, particularly with the removal of Spell Pool and the creation of the counterspelling skill.

[GentlemanLoser]

I'd still like to find out where under casting Direct Spells it's noted your don't get a Damage Resistance Test, like normal. ;)

If the answer is the description of Indirect Spells;

[Fortune]

You do get a Damage Resistance roll (of sorts). That is what the Body/Willpower test (without Armor as noted) technically is. What you don't get is a Reaction/avoidance test, as the spell pretty much automatically hits, and affects you unless you manage to reduce the damage down with the resistance roll.

Compare Direct to Indirect spell resistance ...

Indirect
- Roll Reaction test to avoid
- Roll Body test (usually with half Impact Armor) to reduce damage
- Damage must be reduced to zero, regardless of caster's net hits.

Direct
- No Reaction test!
- Roll Body/Willpower (with no Armor) to reduce damage
- Damage does not need to be reduced to zero, as there is no effect if caster has no net successes

[GentlemanLoser]

As said above, it's not a Damage Resistance Test, as it doesn't reduce the DV of the attack. It's the Resistance/Opposed test to see if the spell hits.

Exactly like the 'Ranged Attack' opposed Test ID spells get.

There is still nothing to say you don't get the DRT, after taking the full DV of a D spell, after it has sucessfully hit.

[DTFarstar]

*shrug* Gonna have to go with Synner, Frank, and several other of the designers answers which is that you don't get to soak the damage.

Makes more sense, to me anyway, and really if you give soak on Direct damage spells then they go from being the spell for certain situations to never really being that good. Once you get to 20-50 karma where counterspelling and willpower have been raised some and magic is still low-ish then they are nothing way more often than they are all.

Chris

[Ryu]

Your mileage does vary.

As direct spells do not offer a damage resistance test, they are the spell for nearly every situation. Seriously, what real combat mage is stopped by willpower and counterspelling? Thats an upper ceiling of about 6(attribute) +6(counterspelling) +2(maybe the mage is specialised)=14 dice for most. The combat mage will throw 5(magic) +6(spellcasting) +2(specialisation) +2(mentor spirit) = 15 out of the gate. Without ever spending karma. At that point the investment in willpower for spell defense becomes questionable - it can after all only pay out if counterspelling is present.

[toturi]

[Fortune]

[FrankTrollman]

How many people who object to the all-or-nothing action of the Mana Bolt also object to the all-or-nothing action of the Petrify spell?

Let's say you're up against a Shadowrunner, you figure he probably has a Body of 5 or so, so you drop a Force 10 Manabolt (requiring a Magic of 5). If you succeed in casting it, the target explodes into a red mist as they take 11 boxes of physical damage. You resist 5P drain. Or you let fly with a Force 5 Petrify. You're limited to 5 hits, which is only occassionally a limitation. If you get a net hit the target turns directly to stone and is out of the combat. You only resist 4S Drain, but you're sustaining a spell for the rest of the battle. Also the astral signatures stop being trackable in just 5 hours instead of 10.

Which is the better spell? That's highly debatable. Situatioally, I'd like to drop an opponent with a lower force spell and take less drain. But situationally I'd like to jack an opponent out of the combat without having to sustain a spell or allow for the possibility that I might get taken out myself and have the target come right back into the battle.

But the fact that it is situational at least gives the possibility of balance. Because I can enumerate circumstances where I would rather cast Petrify and circumstances where I would rather cast Mana Bolt it is well within the grasp of gamemasters to present such circumstances with some frequency that would make a character glad that they had one or the other or both of those spells.

-Frank

[Jhaiisiin]

In our group, we interpreted the damage resistance of the direct spells as such originally:

Spell fires off with X successes. This is a contested success test, being resisted by Body/Willpower + Counterspelling. Reduced to 0 successes means spell fizzles. Assuming that the spell is successful, then a damage resistance test of Body (for physical damage) or Willpower (for stun damage) is made. No dermal armor, dermal plating style cyberware, bone lacing, external armor, or any similar way of resisting external damage apply to this test, as the damage comes from within.

Now we actually threw that out and went with what a lot of people are saying here with the all or nothing approach because we felt it made the mages near useless. Our group tends to run magic heavy (our GM's pride and joy is his Magical Corp/shadowruning company, and that puts all magical teams together in varying combinations), and we were basically throwing duds against the opposition. It was ridiculous. There were always an abundance of counterspelling dice on our side, and usually not enough on the other, but anyone with enough body was removing what damage we had left over from successful spells.

However, our *original* way of playing it seems to fit in with the RAW, as it doesn't explicitly state that the person doesn't get an actual damage resistance test after the initial success test, which made the mages more useful than previously.

EDIT: Changed info about lethality because my brain is apparently fried and not working properly

[GentlemanLoser]

I agree Frank, but Petrify has a few drawbacks. It's sustained, so you can drop the casting Mage. Or you can try to dispel the Petrify.

You can't do anything about the insta-gib Direct Spell.

More food for thought.

What happens when I create a Manipulation killing spell (like the SM rules suggest)? Do you get a DRT for your blood turning to air or all the air in your lungs turning to concrete?

If you do, do you get 1/2 impact armour? Why does armour even help you 'resist' your blood turning to air?

[GentlemanLoser]

[hyzmarca]

[Stahlseele]

[Ryu]

The limit on hits force provides does not limit mana damage spells in any way. Any mage that is build for casting elemental spells throws a high-force manaball, too.

And spell defense that bothers the combat mage is rare- it is possible, but thats where aid sorcery-tasks come into play.

[hobgoblin]

so thats what those dwarfs have in their pipes, deepweed :P

[Fortune]

[GentlemanLoser]

[Stahlseele]

[GentlemanLoser]

What's the diference between ireball and Manaball?

If it misses him, it misses him?

How are you also automatically caught in the AoE?

[kzt]

If you have 21 dice for sorcery tests so you can routinely get 7 hits it doesn't matter. You are casting force 15 spells, without overcasting.....

If we use a more rational number and assume a pool of 13 dice the average is 4 hits. Assume target has a will of 6. So on average they will get two successes. Ok, so direct spells work best. Now assume that the target is a runner team with 3 mages, all of whom have counterspell 6. So the target has (using teamwork) an average of 10 dice of counterspelling, which will soak 3 success. So your manaball does nothing.

A fireball will still likely do some damage, as you have to soak 10+ success to beat it down. Assume reaction 6 - soaks two successes, then two more from body 6, one more from armor 6, and 3 from counterspell. So they take two damage. Not great, but better then zero any day.