SR4A - Nets Hits vs Hits, A question for Synner and other rule authors Options

[knasser]

Because I haven't seen it pointed out yet (apologies if I missed it): The notion that this change is to encourage the use of Indirect Combat spells may have some merit, but keep in mind that a separate change has already made Indirect more appealing. The increase in Object Resistance has made Direct Combat spells significantly less effective against drones, vehicles, etc. The value of this change in balancing Indirect and Direct should be considered slightly less than it otherwise would have been if we keep this in mind.

[Glyph]

Don't forget that indirect combat spells have been screwed over, too. Counterspelling is used for the initial resistance instead of damage soaking, now.

The spellcaster being able to choose the net hits is the only thing left that gives the mage any hope with the new rules. Making the mage pick his number of successes beforehand doesn't add "mystery" to the game - it makes mages all but unplayable - the new rules make them virtually unplayable already, and adding that extra difficulty would be the nail in the coffin. I'm completely with Synner as far as that goes, although I still think the changes to both direct and indirect spells were ill-conceived and completely unwarranted.

[Dunsany]

I have *never*. not in 20 years, seen a mage go unconscious from drain, and that includes the SR3 mage who threw a Force 20D spell. Not once has it happened, in my experience.

Luckily for me, I guess, our experiences differ. I've seen mages fall unconscious several times, twice being my own character. It tends not to happen when the characters are prepared and everything is going well since other people can pick up the slack and the mage doesn't have to cast all that many spells and can easily get medical attention during the slow times. But when things go to hell and you have to keep casting and there's no time for a couple characters to stop and take a break drain can add up fast.

It's a lot of fun to have your position be in danger of being overrun and having to decide between one last spell to hold it off or hope that your teammates pick up your slack if you don't. I'm sorry you haven't had that experience, but I highly recommend it.

[Dunsany]

Because I haven't seen it pointed out yet (apologies if I missed it): The notion that this change is to encourage the use of Indirect Combat spells may have some merit, but keep in mind that a separate change has already made Indirect more appealing. The increase in Object Resistance has made Direct Combat spells significantly less effective against drones, vehicles, etc. The value of this change in balancing Indirect and Direct should be considered slightly less than it otherwise would have been if we keep this in mind.

I agree, and I'd be very interested in knowing what the purposes of the changes actually were. I may or may not agree about whether the changes are a "good idea", but I'd be more inclined to use them if I knew what problems the authors were attempting to fix. As far as I can tell the object resistance change will seriously harm magic's effectiveness against technology, and not just for combat spells. I'm all for indirect spells being the choice for mages who want to take out drones, but I like the fact that currently they are much better, but if you're a very powerful mage (throwing 12+dice) using a direct combat spell is an option. Not a great option, mind you, but it's there. The problem with the change, in my opinion, is that this is not the only effect of the new object resistance. It also changes how many dice a mage will need to make illusions effective against drones. This seems to make illusions next to useless given the prevalence of drones.

So, if the intent is to make indirect combat spells the go-to spell to use against technology the changes seem overbroad in response. Perhaps an increase in object resistance for "combat spells" would have been better? But perhaps the intent was to limit magic's effectiveness against technology across the board. Given this edition's changes to bring magic and technology closer together and less at odds with one another, I'd find that purpose to be a bit odd. No matter what the reason for the changes, I'd like to know them.

[Mikado]

What I don't understand is why they took a mechanic that did not follow any other combat mechanic in the game and changed it so it does not even follow the magic mechanic.
Seriously, what happened here?
Direct combat spells where a problem, yes. But this "solution" does not fix the problem only sweep it under the rug as it where. Fix the problem by making it so unappealing to use is not a fix.

The better solution would be to bring Direct Combat spells under the same combat mechanic as everything else. Give them a "dodge" test. Use willpower or intuition (I vote intuition) as a dodge. Like someone subconsciously shifting their aura to stop it being flooded with mana.
Thus following the dodge/resist mechanic.

Also, shifting the +2 drain modifier for "elemental" spells to direct combat spells.
Given that (most) indirect spells use 1/2 armor and direct spells negate armor switching the two make sense.

Also... using the same mechanic for healing spells uses essence loss as a dice pool modifier for the casting mage. (maybe an optional rule...) (I would add it to the "dodge" test to make math easy when casting "Ball" spells)

All of that still makes Direct Combat spells useful and brings them in line with all other combat mechanics and magic mechanics in the game. It actually fixes the problem not just cover it up.

[Larsine]

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

It smelled like that over here before the SR4A was published.

Lars

[Zormal]

Now you're even being actively penalized if you land a lucky roll and get a lot of hits

I'm *so* with you on this one. Who'd want to play, if you get hurt by doing well...

Edit: Just to make it clear, this means I'm happy with the way you choose net hits (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[JoelHalpern]

In a conceptual sense, the mage gets hit coming and going on direct spells now.
On the one hand, extra success on his spell casting are either painful or of reduced value,
and on the other hand, it has always been the case that extra success on drain resistance don't do you any good at all.

It does seem strange that rolling many successes, which is normally consider a great thing, is now either irrelevant, or a good way to hurt yourself. If they wanted to up the base drain by 1, they could have just upped the base drain by 1.

Yours,
Joel M. Halpern

[Raizer]

Can someone help me understand this contradiction of rules?

p 183/184
Note that objects targeted by Combat spells get to
resist the damage as they would any ranged attack; use their Armor
rating x 2 (or just Armor against spells with elemental effects) to resist
the damage (Barriers, p. 166).

vs. page 206

Direct Combat spells cast against nonliving objects are treated
as Success Tests; the caster must achieve enough hits to beat the item’s
Object Resistance (p. 183). Net hits increase damage as normal (the
object does not get a resistance test).

[Mikado]

Can someone help me understand this contradiction of rules?

p 183/184
Note that objects targeted by Combat spells get to
resist the damage as they would any ranged attack; use their Armor
rating x 2 (or just Armor against spells with elemental effects) to resist
the damage (Barriers, p. 166).

vs. page 206

Direct Combat spells cast against nonliving objects are treated
as Success Tests; the caster must achieve enough hits to beat the item’s
Object Resistance (p. 183). Net hits increase damage as normal (the
object does not get a resistance test).

I think they forgot to include indirect in that somewhere...
Note that objects targeted by indirect Combat spells get to resist the damage as they would any ranged attack; use their Armor rating x 2 (or just Armor against spells with elemental effects) to resist the damage (Barriers, p. 166).

[Caadium]

It does seem strange that rolling many successes, which is normally consider a great thing, is now either irrelevant, or a good way to hurt yourself. If they wanted to up the base drain by 1, they could have just upped the base drain by 1.

Doing the math it really isn't as bad as people think. A manabolt with 3 net successes does the exact same drain DV and damage DV as an flamethrower with 3 net successes. The difference is that the manabolt's damage is all automatic and their is no resistance roll. Conversely, the indirect spell has an elemental affect that comes into play. None of this even takes into account the situational variables that make one type better suited than the other.

If you want to say that Powerbolt is a better comparison to indirect spells because they are both based on body that is fine. For the same drain DV you are doing 1 damage DV less with a powerbolt, but it is still damage that can not be resisted. Again, all other situational variables being equal, I'd sacrifice 1 damage DV instead of letting the target roll Body + 1/2 impact armor to reduce it.

According to the rules a threshold of 3 is considered Hard. At my table, where players roll in the neighborhood of 10-12 dice on things they are good at, we are talking about 3 net hits on an average spell. I do not see it as being penalized when getting enough hits for a hard success, and increasing the damage respectively, puts you at a comparable drain value to a spell that gets a soak roll.

[knasser]

I think they forgot to include indirect in that somewhere...
Note that objects targeted by indirect Combat spells get to resist the damage as they would any ranged attack; use their Armor rating x 2 (or just Armor against spells with elemental effects) to resist the damage (Barriers, p. 166).

I noticed that earlier and was confused. Until I hear otherwise I'm also assuming it's a mistake. It's big news if it isn't!

[Starmage21]

Synner, do the authors have an official position on whether the player knows the exact number of net hits before he decides?

The example makes this a moot point. Hits-resistance = net hits

[Falconer]

Here's a catch I see in here a lot of people are missing. As soon as you have any net hits, the spell is successfull, After that, it's simply a choice of how much drain do you want to risk for damage.

"Every net hit used to increase damage"

Synner's example explicitly uses the original 3 net hits to say, yes the spell worked and had effect. Then he turns around and uses none of them to increase damage. His exact words are "Which he may then choose..." I don't see a huge issue w/ this outside of the fact that SR combat spells were already somewhat gimped.

The best fireball was already an incendiery grenade. Now it's even more so. The best single target 'damage' spell already an APDS round (fired twice per round even!). Now the drain seems pretty punishing leaving only one time they're usefull... when armor is rediculously overwhelming. Oh well, maybe eventually every net hit over a firearms test will add to recoil.

[Starmage21]

It did happen to my first Sr character ever, unter SR1 rules. Of course, I blew all magic pool in casting and resisted drain with only my base attribute. Hey, I was new to this, and 11 years old.

But it DID happen. I have seen it with another character too, whose player made a similar mistake. It will not happen if you know your magic and play intelligently, of course.

Agreed. Once the mage gets into the hands of intelligent players who are capable of doing math, the chance for knocking yourself out from drain reduces considerably. You dont see mages knock themselves out from spells because when they get close to the edge THEY STOP CASTING!(and that usually means they do nothing for the rest of the run that involves risking drain).

I started playing Shadowrun in the initial days of SR2 because my parents bought a box of game books from someone they knew when I was first getting into D&D & Battletech at the age of 10 or 11 (bout 15 years ago). That box had SR1 in it, and I started asking around and soon found out SR2 was the game. I was a kid then, and pretty unoriginal so I played Decker/Mage combos non-stop and quite a few of them died after going KO from the drain from spellcasting.

I STILL to this day dont bother with conjuring spirits. I keep a F4 usually on hand to help me out in a pinch because SR4 allows that to be the case without spending hard-earned cash on an unbound spirit.

[wind_in_the_ston...]

Thematically speaking...

I'm channeling energy through my body, and using it to hurt someone. How much energy? Force. How much do I hurt that guy? If I can hurt him at all, it's Force. Beyond that, it depends on my success test. How much does that energy hurt me, in the process? Let me make another roll.

Enter SR4A. Now why would a better-cast spell do more potential damage to me? Because if I cast it better, I get more energy than I had originally intended.

It kinda makes sense. But other spells that depend on raw energy for effect should have the same mechanic. Like armor, barrier, fling... and indirect combat spells.

[Glyph]

Thematically speaking...

I'm channeling energy through my body, and using it to hurt someone. How much energy? Force. How much do I hurt that guy? If I can hurt him at all, it's Force. Beyond that, it depends on my success test. How much does that energy hurt me, in the process? Let me make another roll.

Enter SR4A. Now why would a better-cast spell do more potential damage to me? Because if I cast it better, I get more energy than I had originally intended.

It kinda makes sense. But other spells that depend on raw energy for effect should have the same mechanic. Like armor, barrier, fling... and indirect combat spells.

But even then... the amount of raw energy you're channeling is your hits, not your net hits. You don't take more Drain from casting better - you take more Drain from affecting the target better.

[Mercurian]

The way I see it, thematically speaking, the total hits are the process of of casting the spell against the target. The target resists, reducing the amount of energy that reaches it. The net hits are the strength of the mystic conduit between the caster and the target, establishing how much mana the the mage can potentially send down the link.

Like Wind, it seems to me that this would make sense for any spell that relies on pure power.

I don't know if that makes sense. Trying to cram a post in between phone calls/customers is kind of a pain... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

[pbangarth]

Intuitively, it would make sense if the Drain of a spell were directly linked to the Force, and be left at that straight across the board. But it isn't. There are many qualifiers that modify the Drain, both up and down. A perusal of those qualifiers suggests that the more one tries to control the flow of mana through his own aura/person, affecting factors such as area, material, permanence, etc., the more the mana affects them, in the form of Drain (See p. 163, Street Magic - Drain Modifiers Table).

In this respect, the SR4A modification to Direct Combat Spells falls directly into line with the philosophy behind Drain modifiers. Unfortunately, the modification stretches the broader paradigm of Shadowrun: the Dice Pool represents how good you are at a task and hits represent how well you perform the task. The Drain rules have walked the line between these two guiding principles of Shadowrun for a long time. If one takes exception with the SR4A modification to Drain, then all aspects of Drain should be re-examined, particularly those that make Drain higher if more control is exerted on the flow of mana.

[Falconer]

I've had a little time to think this over. And I can see why they're doing this. But at the same time, this is far too extreme as well. The problem is they've 'fixed' the extreme cases as best I can tell, but in the process destroyed most any capacity for low-rating magic users to even think of trying these spells. (god forbid you use edge to increase net hits to increase damage! now as it stands any use of edge there pretty much necessitates using it again on your drain soak). And my problem here is the extra damage comes at 1:1 w/ extra drain.

As anyone who's played chars w/ only a magic of say 4, operating in a typical background count of 1.... okay now I'm already operating at Magic3, and all my spells already have their force increased by 1 for drain purposes. Stated again, casting at force3, already invokes force4 drain in these fairly common areas. Please correct me if I have any of that wrong.

I think a far better solution would have been to continue the above model. Any net hits MAY (not must, not min 1) can be used to increase the force of the spell. This would effectively increase the drain by 1 per 2 net hits (as well as make the old saw of, I cast at force 5 just so I get 5/2==2 drain less relevant as now net hits could and would increase that reliably and w/ a little bit of unpredictability).

Another catch in here is this. Astrally, the only combat spells you can use are direct combat. So any magician worth his salt still really needs one, maybe two in his arsenal.

[Dakka Dakka]

In the case of area spells, the heighest number of net hits counts for Drain purposes.

Synner, does that mean that in case of area spells you

a) always have to suffer the maximum drain according to your net hits, no matter how many you use to increase the damage to each target in the area?

or

b) you can choose the extra damage for each target in the area of effect, but the highest number applies to the drain?

[Mr. Unpronouncea...]

I've had a little time to think this over. And I can see why they're doing this. But at the same time, this is far too extreme as well. The problem is they've 'fixed' the extreme cases as best I can tell, but in the process destroyed most any capacity for low-rating magic users to even think of trying these spells.

Nah - they've created new extreme-case problems.

My current example is Skippy the janitor - Body 1, being in the AOE with a couple drones you really, really need to take out NOW. Pretty much an automatic +6 to the drain...even though he's an incidental target.

Expect hamster balls glued to combat drones as direct AOE combat spell inhibitors.

[Draco18s]

Expect hamster balls glued to combat drones as direct AOE combat spell inhibitors.

No. Rocks. Small rocks.

[Dakka Dakka]

Hamsters are actually better, assuming they have a BOD of 1. One die is better than a threshold of 1. In 2/3 cases the net hits on the hamster are equal to the hits on the spellcasting test and not hits -1. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

[knasser]

Nah - they've created new extreme-case problems.

My current example is Skippy the janitor - Body 1, being in the AOE with a couple drones you really, really need to take out NOW. Pretty much an automatic +6 to the drain...even though he's an incidental target.

Expect hamster balls glued to combat drones as direct AOE combat spell inhibitors.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Oh, I can so see that in a game...

Player: "WTF ? Why does that Steel Lynx have hamsters glued to it?
*casts spell*
Player: Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! *explodes*