Proportional Overcasting, An Alternate Approach to Physical Drain Options

[JanessaVR]

Reviewing the rule for overcasting and Physical damage drain (SR4A, p. 182), I find this to arbitrarily punitive.

Take Morgana the Mage. She has a Magic of 6, a Spellcasting skill of 6, and knows a few dozen spells.

She can cast up to Force 6 spells, and stay within Stun damage drain. But, if she decides to step up her game to just Force 8, now all of her drain is suddenly Physical damage. This hasn’t struck me as being particularly equitable. She’s only overreaching by a fraction of her normal capacity, so shouldn’t the drain be 3/4ths Stun and 1/4th Physical? Yes, I realize this adds more bookkeeping, but it’s also a more fair approach for spellcasters.

Take the following scenario. Surprised in an abandoned building by chancing upon 3 ghouls in a room, Morgan can:

Option #1: Cast Manaball at Force 6. The drain is 5 points of Stun damage.
Option #2: Cast Manaball at Force 8. The drain is 4 points of Stun damage, and 2 points of Physical damage.
Option #3: Cast Manaball at Force 12. The drain is 4 points of Stun damage, and 4 points of Physical damage.

Quickly deciding that she absolutely, positively has to kill every last one of these filthy abominations in the room right now (before she becomes dinner), she picks Option #3.

When she rolls for drain, the points of Stun damage are soaked first (overcasting should be dangerous, so the possibility of incurring Physical damage should be very real). If she can successfully soak 8 points of drain, then she won’t have injured herself.

If, however, she only manages to soak 4 points of drain, then she’ll incur 4 points of Physical damage. She’ll probably fry the ghouls, at a cost to herself, but that cost (probably) won’t be her life, which might have been the case if she botched soaking the drain for 8 points of Physical damage.

[Jaid]

SR 4 direct combat spells are not in particular need of boosting. force 12 manaball should, if anything, be nerfed.

[JanessaVR]

SR 4 direct combat spells are not in particular need of boosting. force 12 manaball should, if anything, be nerfed.

This addresses none of the specifics of my post, which was about overcasting, and only used a Combat spell as an example.

[Mantis]

There is nothing particularly wrong with your idea but it will likely encourage more overcasting when you know half the drain will be stun anyway. The point of making overcasting drain physical was to make it a painful choice for a PC. A do or die sort of thing rather than something you toss out whenever. If you don't mind the potential increase in overcasting magicians, then go with your rule.
For me, the added book keeping would make me not use this rule. Especially as GM, you have enough to do without having to track whether some part of drain from a spell is physical or stun. Easier to just say overcast = physical.

[Thanee]

In SR4 I had the following house rule for Drain.

When Overcasting, the portion of the Force that goes beyond your Magic is not halved. Thus, a Force 8 Manabolt from a Magic 6 mage would result into 5 points of Drain (first 6 are halved then the next 2 are not, so 6/2 + 2 = 5 DV).

In addition, when Overcasting, Drain becomes both Stun and Physical (you make two Drain Resistance checks).

So, to stay within the example, the Drain would be 5S and 5P, resisted individually.

Yes, Overcasting should be tough!

Bye
Thanee

[Draco18s]

Could you Edge both resistance checks? 1 point or 2?

[Thanee]

It's two seperate rolls, so Edge would be applied individually as well.

Bye
Thanee

[OrinjFlames24]

I had an idea where magic was the limit to resisting drain. Not sure how well it would work in practice though.

[Draco18s]

It's two seperate rolls, so Edge would be applied individually as well.

I figured, I just wanted to see if that was how you'd actually handled it.