Direct and Indirect spells question Options

[Stormdrake]

So have been running a game using the optional rule for direct damage spells for over a year now and have to say it still feels broken. My thought is to kinda reverse the drain codes on direct and indirect by subtracting three from the drain code of all indirect damage spells and adding three to all direct damage codes. I know it opens the way for some really nasty indirect damage but npc's and other players can roll to dodge it and then soak where as the direct dge spell allows only one roll. The rules as they are written for direct damage don't match with anything else in the game as far as I can find which just annoys the hell out of me for some reason. Anyway has anyone tried a reversing of the drain code along the lines I am thinking of?

[Glyph]

Neraph has a similar house rule - his is +4 for direct and -2 for indirect. Personally, I think anything is better than that idiotic optional rule from SR4A. My advice is to just, however you handle it, leave the mage with some kind of effective, low-Drain, go-to spell for combat. Otherwise, you will wind up driving the mages away from using any combat spells at all.

[Udoshi]

Basically the problem stems from the fast the Direct spells are both better AND cheaper.

Lets break it down like this.
Direct: Like a gunshot, but without a soak. You either defend completely or take damage. Often negative drain, net hits add to damage, and force is the base DV.
Indirect: Chance to dodge, change to soak, generally +2 drain over direct, +4 if you want elemental effects.

What you want to do is make the better spells cost appropriately for their power.
Neraphs houserule is a good start, and I'd second that. Force/2+3 on stunbolt seems a bit excessive, but I haven't played with it so maybe he can comment on it.

As a further change, I'd also remove the 'Force limits net hits' on indirect spells, and only indirect. Since you can dodge and soak fireballs, you should be able to hit someone in the face with them for extra damage - in fact, you can already called shot and take aim with indirect spells.
This basically makes them like a gun, with a DV=Force and no AP unless there's an elemental effect on it. So an experienced spellslinger can choose to cast lower-force spells and rely on getting better hits to get his damage in.


Tymaeus also has a nice houserule for overcasting - when you Overcast, you take Stun, but the Force is no longer halved in drain calculations. It basically means your mage is going to overcast something once, instead of deliberately overcasting at 1 force over magic so they don't flop unconscious.

[Stormdrake]

Ok I think I will start off with something similier to Neraphs and see if that changes things slightly.

[All4BigGuns]

Honestly, there's not a darn thing wrong with how spells' drain works as it is without that crap optional rule. The KISS principle is particularly apt here.

[Speed Wraith]

Direct spells are cheaper, but they're not necessarily better. A well concealed opposition using cover to full advantage is less vulnerable to direct spells than area affecting indirect. Not to mention how nifty some of the elemental options can be for utility work.

[Yerameyahu]

Yes, they're just mostly better. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Unless the point is utility work, they should be judged by combat effectiveness.

[Speed Wraith]

Meh. I don't know that they're mostly better. Their only real flaw lies with drain, and I haven't see a mage take much drain damage since NAN2.

[All4BigGuns]

Meh. I don't know that they're mostly better. Their only real flaw lies with drain, and I haven't see a mage take much drain damage since NAN2.

Oh, trust me you can still take drain regardless of how "low" it is. Just like you can still get one-shotted by a gun even with 22 ballistic armor and a 5 Body (I know, I've had it happen).

[UmaroVI]

They really are mostly better. Stunball/Bolt are bread-and-butter combat spells, and everything else is pushed into niches, because it's better 95% of the time and cheaper too.

[Yerameyahu]

Yes, SpeedWraith, because they're over/multicasting F/2-1, instead of F/2+5. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Even if it were true that the only flaw is drain (it's not), that's a hell of a flaw.

[Speed Wraith]

You guys must be fighting some really terrible opponents if you don't see Indirect spells having serious advantages over Direct spells at times. Someone else was asking about critter Concealment earlier. Stunbolt won't help you against something you can't see, but fireball might. Depending on the type of damage/elemental effects, Indirect Spells may be better choices for damaging objects than Direct. In a situation where the whole team is trying to wear down some big nasty, an Indirect Spell can help to chip away at the beastie's defense pool. Finally, sometimes just having flashy effects can make a huge difference in morale.

[Udoshi]

You guys must be fighting some really terrible opponents if you don't see Indirect spells having serious advantages over Direct spells at times. Someone else was asking about critter Concealment earlier. Stunbolt won't help you against something you can't see, but fireball might.

It makes a lot more sense when you realize what kind of Forces, Hits and Drain you need to reliably instakill things.

For example.... drones! They never have more than 4 body, which means 10 boxes, and an OR of 5. So if you can get 5 hits, or spend an edge to do so, a force 5 powerbolt instakills any drone for 3 drain.
A super duper troll with massive body and 30 armor isn't going to have that high a willpower. I'll be generous and say he has maybe a 4 willpower, for 10 stun boxes. A force 9 stunbolt is 3 drain. A force 11 is 4, and each does at least +1 damage for 1 net hit. Both are a save or lose.
It gets worse when you consider multicasting. A force 5 stunbolt by itself is 1 drain. One. Doing at least six damage if it hits. Two drain if you cast two, three drain each if you have a lot of opponents - your drain resistance isn't split. With bonuses from Mentor Spirits, Specializations, and Foci that are added to each test after the split, its still really easy to crush your opponents single dice pool(either body OR willpower depending on type) with the weight of dice you're throwing out.

And you just can't get the same effect with the same sustainability with Indirect spells.
Against the aforementioned troll, a fireball can first be dodged entirely (or reducing your extra damage from net hits to nothing), and the AP-half only affects Armor, not body - half of 30 is still 15, plus the trolls Body, its entirely possible he'll just soak your force 5 fireball completely. That's 10 drain for you, by the way, so don't even think about overcasting it. Flamethrower(the non-area version more comparable to stunbolt/powerball) is a little more forgiving at 8 drain, but still, its over twice the drain you pay for the undodgable direct spells.

That's why direct spells are so good. they're just so efficient.


Also concealment doesn't work this way. It doesn't give a Visibility Modifier - which would hurt any spellcasting test, it gives a penalty to Perception. If you manage to see them through the concealment, you can hit them just as easily with any spell.

[Yerameyahu]

It's true, Speed Wraith, that there could be *some* situations where directs aren't flat better. But that's not what we're arguing about. It's 'most' (probably even 'almost all').

[Speed Wraith]

Concealment may have been a less than optimal choice for an example, though still relevant. If you can't see your target because you failed your perception test, but you know something is lurking in the rubble over there, yay. Flat-out invisibility or known targets totally covered by walls/objects however, makes my point better. Add in the fact that fireball does way more damage to targets behind a low wall (and not visible to direct spells) than air-timed grenades simply because the damage doesn't degrade with and doesn't scatter.

I don't think I'd ever bother to make a mage that didn't have an indirect area affect spell. That goes triple for NPCs when I'm GMing. Players are clever and will do everything they can to avoid being visible to the magician.

[Yerameyahu]

Again, it's not 'indirects can never be better'. I agree: *if* you happen to know where the target is (within a pretty small AoE), but you don't have LoS, and the choice is only 'direct or indirect', a direct spell is clearly not too good. That's a pretty big if, and one which I'm claiming represents a small fraction of the overall space of situations. (At worst, less than 50%.) So: a direct is not better for that, but still for the majority of situations. Even if your character has Fireball (just in case), he's using it much, much less often.

[Krishach]

Damage boosts, though, should start to make drain for direct spells significant. If manabolt hits applied to damage are used, and add directly to drain, and firebolt hits add to drain and do NOT add to spell drain, then higher damage spells with lower drain would need to be indirect.

[Yerameyahu]

That's why I said over/multicast, which I understand is the typical workaround.

[Stormdrake]

Where is the optional rule from Catalyst for direct combat spells listed? We have been using it for a while but I can't remember where the thing is written down.

[Krishach]

it's in the update FAQ on http://www.shadowrun4.com/wp-content/uploa...R4A_changes.pdf
it shows the changes from the original 4th ed to 20th anniversary ed.

It's also in the 20th anniversary rulebook.


@Yerameyahu
I was not thinking of overcasting. Anything applied to extra damage on manabolt with more than 2 dice to damage will be more drain that a Firebolt with +6 to DV.

Indirect combat spells are handled as ranged attacks. So that also opens up another can of possibilities that haven't even been discussed.


In general, I find manabolt effective against high defense living targets: IE dodge or soak specialists, who typically have a lower Will and can't dodge manabolt. But the damage potential for Firebolt against a lower defense target is more than the damage potential for manabolt, at lower drain.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

In general, I find manabolt effective against high defense living targets: IE dodge or soak specialists, who typically have a lower Will and can't dodge manabolt. But the damage potential for Firebolt against a lower defense target is more than the damage potential for manabolt, at lower drain.

Only (possibly) if you are using the optional Ruling..

If you are not, it is hard to beat F/2 Drain (Manabolt) vs F/2+3 (Fire Bolt). Of course, Stun Bolt achieves this... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

At Force 5, Manabot is 2DV Drain, and FireBolt is 5DV Drain.
They both potentially deal 5 Damage + Net Hits, so lets give them both 5 Net Hits. So 10 DV Each, with MAXED Net Hits.
ManaBolt deals all 10 DV. Firebolt gets an additional Soak, so, lets give Average Joe a Body of 3 and a Armor of 4 (Reduced to 2) for 5 Dice.
NOTE: Overcasting the ManaBolt to Force 10, with no applied Net Hits still gets you 5 DV Drain, and 10 DV Damage, if using the Optional Rule). Same as the Firebolt.

With AVERAGE Soaks it would round to 2 DV Avoided, so 8 DV for the FireBolt. With Bought Hits, the Firebolt still only does 9DV. STILL LESS THAN THE MANABOLT.

SO, HOW is Firebolt providing more Damage Potential for less drain?

EDIT: Of course, you could be discussing a Houserule here, and I completely missed it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Yerameyahu]

Except you can't just discard over- and multi-casting. That's half the point.

I thought it had been mentioned, actually. Being a ranged attack can really only hurt the indirects, possibly a lot. Now that we're talking about Firebolt, you're not even getting the AoE benefits that Speed Wraith said were key. There's also no real reason to use manabolt instead of stunbolt, so that's another bit of Drain lost. If anything, it's powerbolt you might want (for drones and things).

[UmaroVI]

Even if you do use the optional rule: compare Force 5 Flamethrower (5 drain) to Force 9 Manabolt (4 drain) with only one net hit kept (+1 drain) (remember, you can choose to drop net hits!). Unless you're attacking a nonliving target, the Manabolt is outright better.

[Halinn]

In fact, because overcasting is so easy, I'd suggest not using that optional rule. That will mean that magicians will not be punished for using lower force spells, which means that you should expect to sometimes see stun-/manabolts that don't always take someone out on the first shot. Perhaps add +1 to the drain codes of direct spells to simulate what it would actually do.

[Krishach]

EDIT: Of course, you could be discussing a Houserule here, and I completely missed it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

So have been running a game using the optional rule for direct damage spells for over a year now and have to say it still feels broken.

I was under the impression that the optional rule was being included.

Not counting that rule, I would personally only use indirect spells if the secondary effect was needed. IE, something needed to be on fire.

Also, on a low defense target, things like Called Shot apply to all ranged attacks."Indirect Combat spells are treated
like ranged combat attacks." (pg 204 SR4a) It can boost your damage regardless of net hits, as long as you hit. Smartlink, too, will help with things like this.