Yet More Question Options

[Aerospider]

Stunbolt at F7 is actually only 2 drain and at F9 is only 3.

I think that houserule will in almost all cases lead magicians to multi-cast instead overcast. So long as the split dice pool (with doubled bonuses) can still reliably succeed the drain is drastically smaller. Continuing the stunbolt case study, two F6 stunbolts for a magician with a Magic of 6 will cause two lots of 3 stun drain (6/2 - 1 + 1) with a resistance roll for each, resulting in a couple of boxes of damage at most. Compared to one resistance roll against 11 drain you're looking at more than half a damage track in difference. If you use the heavy damage rules of Augmentation (which I think should not be optional) then it's an even bigger difference.

The intended deterrent against lots of overcasting is that physical damage is a much bigger deal than stun damage. A full stun track can be slept off in a day quite easily whilst physical would take a week or more. Stun damage is also more easily alleviated if you need to keep going. Also, the end of the physical track is a lot scarier than the end of the stun track. These factors are enough for my players.