Multiple Spellcasting?, Is it still there? Options

[The Jopp]

I remember that in SR3 you could cast multiple spells at once by splitting the casting dicepool (and perhaps even the drain pool) in order to fling two or more spells at once - is that still possible?

[darthmord]

Yes it is still possible in SR4. I recall several people talking about how useful it was to double cast two lower force Manaballs rather than one big one.

It's basically a nickel & dime effect rather than a $1 smack up side the head. Death from a thousand papercuts sort of thing.

[Ranger]

I remember that in SR3 you could cast multiple spells at once by splitting the casting dicepool (and perhaps even the drain pool) in order to fling two or more spells at once - is that still possible?

Yes. See "Casting Multiple Spells" (SR4, 173).

[ArkonC]

Casting Multiple Spells: In some circumstances, a magician may seek to cast multiple spells simultaneously (including multiples of the same spell—for example, to target two different opponents with a mana bolt in the same action). Multiple spells may be cast with the same Complex Action, but to do so the magician must split her Magic + Spellcasting dice pool between each target. Additionally, the Drain Value for each of the spells is increased by +1 per additional spell (Drain Resistance Tests are also handled separately). Multiple spells are resolved in whatever order the caster desires. The maximum number of spells a character can cast in a single Complex Action is equal to her Spellcasting skill, and each spell must be allocated at least one die.

[WeaverMount]

How would splitting your dice pool interact with foci and fetishes? Specifically what I"m thinking about is crazy multicast moderate force indirect spells as a sneak attack. If they can't dodge they just eat the force of the spell plus whatever 1 or 2 you get on the casting. If you could stack foci, on each test that would be a lot more viable. Anyone with better RAW-fu than I care to spell that interaction?

[Kilahuea]

I had a player that asked me the same thing, i sayed him this because there is a lak of info in that, i told him that he could use the foci bonus completly on the first spell however the next spell he losed 2 dices of the foci and so on, and if the foci stayed without dices it had to make a chek equal to its rating or it would destroy.

And about the sneak attack i dont see it possible because the metahumans resist magic instinctively.

[Fortune]

In SR4 the Dice Pool typically is made up of Attribute plus Skill (plus anything that directly adds to those two stats). Anything else is a Dice Pool Modifier. When you split your Dice Pool, you effectively are creating two new and totally separate Dice Pools (for the purpose of making two separate tests). Any modifier that is applicable to either test is then added to (or subtracted from) those Dice Pools. There is nothing in the rules that limits the amount of times a single Focus can be used in a turn or how many tests that Focus can modify (merely the limit of one Focus per test).

Keep in mind that all modifiers are applicable to split Dice Pools, not just the positive ones, and there are usually a lot more negative modifiers than there are those that grant a bonus.

[WeaverMount]

Thanks, fortune that was exactly the kind of reply I was hoping for

With the sneak attack you get to bi-pass the dodge. They still get to resist with whatever they have available