Direct Spells, Overpowered? Options

[Stormdrake]

Have been dealing with this for some time and it just seems way overpowered. The caster fires off a direct spell, gets to bypass all armor and the target gets to roll only their willpower (plus any counter spelling). This useally eends up with a dead oppenent. The only way around this I have found is that the caster needs to be able to "see" the target (the flesh, not an armored suit).

Am I reading that correctly though? If the target is in armor with no visible organics (Face plate is mirrored) does that trump direct spells?

[Shinobi Killfist]

Well there are all the other casting modifiers that can come into play, visibility, cover etc. But yes you have the general idea on how it works.

My general opinion is yes they are overpowered but not by much, overcasting is what breaks them and the rest of magic. In 2e for example you had to pick the force of the spell to learn it at and unless you picked a whopper of a spell it usually started at M or S damage. Otherwise it basically worked the same, the person rolled willpower, you rolled your dice, if you got more hits they were damaged. If you were not saving dice for counterspelling and drain odds are you killed them so the end result was similar but less guaranteed. Combat spells have always been powerful SR3 and 4 they are probably at there most powerful point since you can on the fly pick the damage.

[Runner Smurf]

Nope, armor doesn't trump spells. One of the old magic books specifically addressed this, saying that the aura of a person actually extends several inches beyond their body, allowing it to be targeted by a spell. Being in a vehicle with heavily tinted/one-way windows is effective, but armor isn't.

On the other hand, the line between body-armor and a powered exoskeleton vehicle shell actually is a bit iffy. By the magic theory given in Shadowrun, if the armor was thick enough, the aura would be concealed. Your call as a GM where you draw the line, but my preference would be to say if that it's built with the armor rules, you can be targeted by a spell. If it's built with the vehicle rules, then you may be protected.

Of course, you aren't protected from a Wreck Vehicle spell...but you are always vulnerable to something.

As for Direct Spells being overpowered...that's a matter of extensive debate. But there is a reason that every team wants a mage on hand with good Counterspelling, and that one of SR's rules of combat is "Geek the mage first."

[TommyTwoToes]

Correct, overcasting is the issue. I recommend using the optional rule for increasing the drain of direct combat spells by 1 for each hit applied to increasing the damage. This helps bring the damage down to weapon damage ranges but does not eliminate the benefit of only 1 roll to stop the hurt.

[DireRadiant]

Always fun.

p. 160 SM "Note that full body
armor does not “conceal” the person within and prevent them
from being targeted."

The counter to all magic is "Geek the mage"

In this case, make sure to apply all cover modifiers. While a full body suit won't prevent targeting, I'm sure it might give some cover.

[yesferatu]

It really depends on the target, let's assume they don't have counterspelling.
If you're casting a direct physical spell, you're rolling against body, which can sometimes be as many as 15 dice.
If you're casting a direct mana spell, yes, willpower isn't very many resist dice.

Without overcasting, at 6 magic /6 spellcasting you're rolling 12 dice on a mana spell.
At like 30% success rate, you're looking at like 3/4 hits vs. their willpower roll.
So blah blah blah...if your target doesn't resist anything, you can potentially do like 10-12 stun, which will probably knock out most targets.
Then you have to roll your drain, which can also go badly for you.
If you overcast, yes you can do even more, but you can also potentially kill yourself with drain.

I think the limiting factor on magic is obviously is the drain.
No other character can wound/kill themselves with their own primary attack.

If your spellcasters are overpowered, use the net hits optional rule which increases the drain by 1 for each net hit.
Mages are a lot less likely to overcast to 12 when they'll be soaking potentially 12 additional physical drain.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Correct, overcasting is the issue. I recommend using the optional rule for increasing the drain of direct combat spells by 1 for each hit applied to increasing the damage. This helps bring the damage down to weapon damage ranges but does not eliminate the benefit of only 1 roll to stop the hurt.

The problem with the optional rule is it is net hits that increase the drain and you can control how many net hits you have. So you always go with 1 net hit and force 9+spells(ok always odd level since you round down on drain).

Personally I wish the optional rule was add 1 to the drain for every 2 force the spell exceeds your magic. But I really wish they had changed the drain formulas entirely to F instead of F/2 maybe change the modifiers a bit so a fireball isn't F+5 but F+3 or somethings.

[Kyrel]

In my personal opinion, you are right that Direct spells are overpowered Stormdrake.

I've debated the issue of Direct spells with some friends before, and some of us agree that some sort of "nerf" is needed, while others disagree. Me personally, I belong to the crowd that believe that some sort of limiter is needed. Two options we've debated, but not tested, is:

A) For every beginning two points your Essence is below 6, you get a point of Counterspelling to defend against Direct spells. I.e. With an Essence of 1,3 you'd get +3 dice to defend against Direct type spells.
or
B) A mage casting a Direct spell must beat the same threadshold, as if he was trying to use a Heal spell on the same character.

My gaming group has arguments for and against all options as well as the need for a nerf or not.

[X-Kalibur]

Actually, I really like the sound of option B. It's interesting and original.

[Stormdrake]

I was thinking of the Military armor which shows as being pretty bulky and encloes the wearer. Can you tell me the page were it sasy that the aura extends out? The reason I ask is that according to the rules on barriers a caster can not see through any wall to shoot at a target on the otherside. Having done construction some walls are pretty flimsy when compared to the armor that is available in Shadowrun.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I was thinking of the Military armor which shows as being pretty bulky and encloes the wearer. Can you tell me the page were it sasy that the aura extends out? The reason I ask is that according to the rules on barriers a caster can not see through any wall to shoot at a target on the otherside. Having done construction some walls are pretty flimsy when compared to the armor that is available in Shadowrun.

There is no rule, its fluff to explain why clothes don't stop a mana bolt. I wear a robe game balance wise is not a good way to stop all direct combat spells. They give no exceptions like for really bulky armor to the rule that direct combat spells ignore armor. Back in SR2 I think military grade armor provided some kind of defense against direct combat spells, but that may have been a house rule. Personally I'd have no problem with a ruling that said military grade full armor was more on the vehicle scale of bulk and people wearing it could not be targeted by direct combat spells and other spells that required similar LOS like mind control spells. It would be a nice perk countering some of the form fitting stacking silliness getting close to the same protection.

[Jaid]

in general, it's not hard for *anyone* to one-shot *anyone* in shadowrun unless it's an exceptional challenge. yes, power bolt is scary. but then again, full auto suppressed gunfire is scary too. taking 14P damage from an ares alpha is not particularly likely to leave the target standing, and if you start using stuff like stick-n-shock, or most of the drugs available to be used (capsule rounds or gas grenades) or similar, you end up with pretty much everyone being able to take out opponents in a single shot pretty easily. heck, some of the non-magical methods are simple actions so you can use them twice per IP whereas the magician only gets one per IP.

in any case, don't forget to apply modifiers to the magician's dicepool... visibility modifiers will lower the dice pool, for example, so have security use smoke grenades, take cover, use lighting conditions that favor the security forces, use flashpaks, etc. in fact, if the magician can't see you, he can't target you, so if you want to challenge the magician i bet he doesn't have a particularly amazing perception dice pool. if you have something that is hidden, he won't be able to even try to attack it. (note: you should still be using all those vision-modifying effects, like crappy lighting, smoke/thermal smoke grenades, flashpaks, etc, so that the magician's perception DP is low. that way you don't have to put security guards with 6 points of skill in infiltration, just having a dp of 1(+2 specialisation) as part of their security training.

but with a little work, you should be able to easily drop the magician's dicepool for perception (-2 if they don't spend a simple action for observing in detail, -2 or more for thermal smoke, an additional -2 if they're trying to perceive something not in the immediate vicinity, an additional -2 if there's something interfering with their sight, which i would apply if it was both dim light and smoky, and you've already got -8 to the magician's DP. if you figure they could reasonably have a spirit for support, you could even give them concealment at 3-4 dice without straining realism. you could also give them a spirit that has magical guard, mind you...)

and if the magician can't beat it's infiltration skill on a perception(visual) check, then the magician can't even attack. even if he does spot them, his dicepool will be suffering, which makes it harder to just instantly drop people.

[killfr3nzy]

Simple answer - have a Biofiber Layer in your armour. It would only work for things that covered you fairly extensively, and probably only in things like Riot Armour upwards for the semi-solid form.

Also, Mages can only attack what they can see - so don't stand in the open. You shouldn't be, in any case - fullauto will get you just as dead.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Something that has always bugged me. Can you cast a spell on someone behind a glass wall?
You can't see the target's aura, but you can see it.

[Runner Smurf]

I think one of the old magic books talked about the glass thing - actually, SR2 (pg. 130). Basically, you can target anything you can see directly, without the image being translated into another medium. As long as the image is only optically modified (like with glass binoculars) you can target it. It specifically says "transparent glass is no hindrance," and you can even target things that you are seeing reflected in mirrors.

I've always understood that you can also target astral entities if you can see them when perceiving astrally, in which case glass does block your line of sight.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

I think one of the old magic books talked about the glass thing - actually, SR2 (pg. 130). Basically, you can target anything you can see directly, without the image being translated into another medium. As long as the image is only optically modified (like with glass binoculars) you can target it. It specifically says "transparent glass is no hindrance," and you can even target things that you are seeing reflected in mirrors.

I've always understood that you can also target astral entities if you can see them when perceiving astrally, in which case glass does block your line of sight.

In that case, there is really no reason why you can't target someone inside a military-grade armor. NOW, if someone was literally piloting a humanoid "armor" instead of "wearing" it then the magician really can't see the pilot inside of the vehicle.

[Eugene]

I think a lot of the complaints come down to the fact that it's hard to build a high Willpower character.

[tagz]

Now, I don't know where we're getting this whole "Targeting the Aura" thing.

Unless I've missed something fundamental about the magic rules you can never target an Aura (SR4 p183). You target either a physical object (car, dog, rock, person, etc) or in the astral you target a Astral Form. You can however use an Aura as a targeting POINT.

Seeing the aura on the physical plane allows you to hit a person through their armor? First off, your aura exists on the astral and not the physical plane. Second, that would mean that casting Ignite or any other direct spell wouldn't work on any non-living (no aura) thing.

No, the ruling is that "full body armor does not "conceal" the person within and prevent them from being targeted." That just means armor doesn't stop LOS casting, it doesn't mean jack all about Auras.

I get some people are using the Aura bleedout effect as a fluff explanation, but it fails against the RAW and other fluff concepts. Personally I like the idea that it's more a matter of establishing a magical link to the object in question.


So targeting through glass is fine. Seeing the aura on the physical plane (impossible) was never a factor in spellcasting.

[Chance359]

I really like the idea of a layer of bio fiber providing its force in armor against all spells targeting the wearer (friendly ones included).

[Mordinvan]

Correct, overcasting is the issue. I recommend using the optional rule for increasing the drain of direct combat spells by 1 for each hit applied to increasing the damage. This helps bring the damage down to weapon damage ranges but does not eliminate the benefit of only 1 roll to stop the hurt.

And it introduces a mechanic of harming the mage for being good at his job.

[Mordinvan]

The problem with the optional rule is it is net hits that increase the drain and you can control how many net hits you have. So you always go with 1 net hit and force 9+spells(ok always odd level since you round down on drain).

Personally I wish the optional rule was add 1 to the drain for every 2 force the spell exceeds your magic. But I really wish they had changed the drain formulas entirely to F instead of F/2 maybe change the modifiers a bit so a fireball isn't F+5 but F+3 or somethings.

so 9 drain to the mage for throwing a force 6 fire ball? I think that's a little steep don't you? Would you KO a sammy for tossing a weaker then normal grenade?

[X-Kalibur]

You do realize that currently at F/2 + 5 you're taking 8 drain for that same F6 fireball, right? The idea is to start penalizing with higher drain values over Force 6, but in order to balance out lower force spells, you'd need to change their static modifier.

<edit> of course, most of us know it isn't elemental effects that people think are overpowered at all.
Most of us look at 1 spell throughout all editions - stunbolt. Currently F/2 - 1 drain means at F7 you're only needing 2 hits to negate all drain. Also, night night for the target.

[Mordinvan]

in general, it's not hard for *anyone* to one-shot *anyone* in shadowrun unless it's an exceptional challenge. yes, power bolt is scary. but then again, full auto suppressed gunfire is scary too. taking 14P damage from an ares alpha is not particularly likely to leave the target standing, and if you start using stuff like stick-n-shock, or most of the drugs available to be used (capsule rounds or gas grenades) or similar, you end up with pretty much everyone being able to take out opponents in a single shot pretty easily. heck, some of the non-magical methods are simple actions so you can use them twice per IP whereas the magician only gets one per IP.

in any case, don't forget to apply modifiers to the magician's dicepool... visibility modifiers will lower the dice pool, for example, so have security use smoke grenades, take cover, use lighting conditions that favor the security forces, use flashpaks, etc. in fact, if the magician can't see you, he can't target you, so if you want to challenge the magician i bet he doesn't have a particularly amazing perception dice pool. if you have something that is hidden, he won't be able to even try to attack it. (note: you should still be using all those vision-modifying effects, like crappy lighting, smoke/thermal smoke grenades, flashpaks, etc, so that the magician's perception DP is low. that way you don't have to put security guards with 6 points of skill in infiltration, just having a dp of 1(+2 specialisation) as part of their security training.

but with a little work, you should be able to easily drop the magician's dicepool for perception (-2 if they don't spend a simple action for observing in detail, -2 or more for thermal smoke, an additional -2 if they're trying to perceive something not in the immediate vicinity, an additional -2 if there's something interfering with their sight, which i would apply if it was both dim light and smoky, and you've already got -8 to the magician's DP. if you figure they could reasonably have a spirit for support, you could even give them concealment at 3-4 dice without straining realism. you could also give them a spirit that has magical guard, mind you...)

and if the magician can't beat it's infiltration skill on a perception(visual) check, then the magician can't even attack. even if he does spot them, his dicepool will be suffering, which makes it harder to just instantly drop people.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that not observing in detail negatively impacts spell casting...
edit:
and all that smoke and flashpack nonsense mean nothing to an astrally perceiving mage.

[Mordinvan]

I really like the idea of a layer of bio fiber providing its force in armor against all spells targeting the wearer (friendly ones included).

Biofiber wouldn't work, but there are some atral hazing lilies that should do the trick if you could G.E. some algae to do the trick.

[X-Kalibur]

I'm not sure where you get the idea that not observing in detail negatively impacts spell casting...
edit:
and all that smoke and flashpack nonsense mean nothing to an astrally perceiving mage.

That same mage is now also completely open to attacks from the Astral as well. And given how fast astral travel is a security mage from another complex could come flying in at you sideways while you're taking out guards and blast you with mana spells.