Rapid fire mage., Pleas tell me why you cant do this. Options

[Edward]

Pleas tell me why you cant do this. Rapid fire mage.


I came up with this stunt a while ago and I cant work out why it wouldn’t work.

Playing a spell slinger take a trauma dampener and a spell category focus 6 for combat spells. A sorcery (spellcasting) of 5 (6) and power bolt and stun bolt (or mana bolt) at force 5.

In combat take a action to cast the same spell 7 times allocating one sorcery dice to each spell and selecting a base damage level of light.

Assuming your targets linked attribute is 4 (ie you chose the right spell) your 7 dice will generate about 3 successes while there 4 will generate 1-2 (even chance). Multiply this by 7 and you have inflicted 13 boxes of damage.

You then take drain from each spell at 16(L). You will fain to resist it but the trauma dampener reduces these single boxes of stun damage to nothing.

It gets wors when you use ts with one of the shamanic totems that gets +2 dice for combat spells (and +3 is available)

7 spells with 9 dice each at target 4 is 4-5 successes
Resisted with 4 dice at target 5 for 1-2 successes
Probable damage 7 moderate wounds or 21 boxes

Heaven forbid I fetish link the spell to reduce its effective force for the purpose of drain and cast it at force 6. (Drain is still stun).

The system is very strong against shielding but week against anybody with spell resistance (as the edge)

It is also obscenely powerful if used with the death touch spell as you can use a base damage level of moderat

And this is starting character available.

I spoke to 2 people I know that run SR. one said it was balanced but he forgot to account for the totem modifiers. The other told me it would cause problems with addiction (very reasonable) witch is bad for magic but on reviewing the rules for addiction I find that is only a minor problem in the medium term (to keep up the stunt you need to spend karma increasing your body stat otherwise you will eventually loose points from max body and then condition modifier and essence and possibly magic). Probably still good for the length of an average campaign. You should RP being addicted to casting spells however.

I would never play this character normally as I believe it is over powered but if I cant find a reason why it is not allowed I will when the GM that said it was balanced next runes a game. Partly for play testing partly to show him that he is not as good at calculating balance issues in his head as he clams.

Edward

[Ecclesiastes]

Just how exactly do you cast a spell 7 times in one action? Casting a spell is a Complex Action, and therefor, you only get one per round.

[Siege]

Assuming you play 3rd edition:

Page 107, BBB:

A magician may cast a spell by taking a Complex Action.

Which means you only get one spell per Complex Action.

-Siege

[Siege]

Oh hell, according to page 181, BBB:

A Mage may cast multiple spells - however, a +2 TN to the drain resistence test for all spells cast in the same Complex Action.

So yes - your mage can cast 7 spells, but he's going to be eating a +14 penalty to his Drain test.

-Siege

[Kagetenshi]

I'm pretty sure there are rules somewhere for casting multiple spells at a time. It's rarely worth it (drain=nasty), but this may be one of those cases.

~J

[Edward]

And +14 to resist the drain isn’t much of a threat when it is light stun and you have a trauma dampener.

Edward

[Luke Hardison]

Actually, so long as you split your Sorcery test dice between all of the spells, you can cast the same spell on as many targets as you like. I'm not too sure you can cast the same spell at a low level on the same target, though. I'll try to find the reference.

[Edward]

It is also useful to target separate opponents with low professionalism ratings so they will run away. The advantage over aria spells is that you don’t harm any other people or objects and you have no risk or drain actually affecting you.

Edward

[Herald of Verjig...]

The foci do not add to every spell cast, they add to total dice you can use to cast with. You have 12 dice (plus spell pool) to split between your 7 spells. This leads you to have less dice than will probably be used to resist.

Assuming you keep spell pool for defense, you can cast 6 spells with two dice each. That's not likely to stage. That's relatively easy to stage down by the victim. You're better off putting 12 dice behind one spell.

[BitBasher]

And as the spells are all cast on one action, the dice from the spell focus would be divided among them, just as your sorcery skill is divided among them. Also, all the drain rolls are simultaneous which I would rule you take one box off of the total of all of them, not off of each individual one. They were all cast in the same action after all.

Of course, I don't allow the Trauma Damper to work on drain, so it's a moot point in my games.

[Siege]

I just talked to my GM and he said yes, by canon it's legal.

And it's been done once or twice in his experience during 2nd edition.

So - happy munching. :grinbig:

-Siege

[Edward]

BitBasher
Althow your statement “the dice from the spell focus would be divided among them” would make a good argument to stope this stunt it dose not coincide with SR3 p190 spell category foci “a spell category focus provides a number of extra dice equal to its force for the sorcery or drain resistance test for any spell within its category”

I may be looking for a canon reason to disallow it but that is not it.

Not particularly surprised to learn that it has been done before.

Edward

[Herald of Verjig...]

Try reading the paragraph about all types of spell foci.

[ShadowGhost]

One other problem even though you are casting 7 spells simultaneously, the target gets to resist each spell individually, making 7 resistance tests with his/her 4 willpower.

You also cannot use more spell pool than your sorcery skill (or specialization).

You must split your sorcery(specialization) dice among each spell to be cast simultaneously - you do not roll your entire skill for each spell.

Each spell cast has to have at least one sorcery die allocated to it - this means you can only cast 6 spells simultaneousluy, and add one spell pool to each, plus totem bonuses and foci.

BTW - I don't beleive totem modifiers apply to each spell when casting simultaneously - you take your 1, 2, 3 dice (whatever it is) and split it up over the whichever spells you choose to add it to.

We houserule that Trauma dampners work on drain, but only on the first one. i.e rolling for six simultaneous spells with 12L drain each, if you fail the first drain - no stun, but any of the five following will add stun damage if those tests fail.

[Siege]

I think the Willpower 4 refers to the target, not the caster.

Not that the extra makes a critical difference in the caster's ability to resist drain - I think the mage has written off the idea of trying to eat a 16L drain.

But in the TN of 4 to 5 can have a greater impact on the shotgun effect.

-Siege

[Edward]

It apers than I focused my reading to much on the specific and didn’t look enf at the general fucus rules. Thankyou Herald of Verjigorm for pointing that out.

ShadowGhost I had allowed for the separate resistance to each spell and I had used no spell pool. I had been splitting my sorcery dice among each spell resulting in sorcery +focus +totem modifier or 1+6+2 for each of the 7 spells. I would disagree with you on the totem modifiers. I think they should apply to each spell but as was pointed out by Herald of Verjigorm a focus would not. Your house rule is a good one and one I had considered but I was looking for something canon.

Siege. You ar very right I had not even intended to role the drain resistance test (I think I already wasted enough time rolling the attacks for 7 spells

Edward

[Herald of Verjig...]

The rules are often a maze, sometimes they are where you expect and it is a surprise to find them there.

I tend to prefer applying the totem modifiers once for all the stacked spells, but that part isn't quite as clear as the focus line.

[tjn]

Thread which came to the conclusion that totem modifers apply wholly to each test.

So to get this over with: when taken to the absurd limits, a starting character looks something like this:

An Albino Gnome Dragonslayer Shaman with Exceptional Attribute Willpower can cast seven (due to specialization) Force 6 Manabolts using 5 dice each (with 6 dice of spell pool left) for Light damage and end up with a single 15L stun drain. For which he has 10 dice to try and soak, which admittedly is hard but not out of the realm of possibility.

Could possibly fetish for drain and knock it down to the equivelent of a Force 5 so when the anklebiter gets enough nuyen to buy the Trama Dampener to complete the munch, it would remain stun without having to geasa.

Sure the character is an astral MIRV, but the character is just fraggin silly. What's he going to do? Anklebite for Justice?

[Kagetenshi]

[mintcar]

I´ve always seen the option of dividing your dice for casting a spell as casting the spell once, only with multiple targets. If you make that assumption its natural to assume that ALL bonus dice apply to the sorcery skill BEFORE dividing.

As a GM I would definetly, without hesitation disallow casting the same spell several times on the same target in the same round as this is clearly not intended as an option by the constructors of this game. If it was possible to do so it would be, depending on how many times you count the bonus dice, either a waste of dice rolling time or simply a more powerful but complex way of casting spells. Think about it. If a character casts a spell on another, what you want to do is pit the caster´s offense against the target´s defence. Now why do that seven times when it can be resolved in one? I don´t meen any disrespect, but isn´t this just a question of common sense?

[Siege]

Well, an astral machine gun could come in handy now and then. :grinbig:

-Siege

Edit: Ya know, it's silly and the numbers are grotesque - but there isn't anything that prohibits the concept.

It's the same reason if you're going to crank up autofire on a weapon, you'd prefer the recoil to be fairly manageable. Now, if we equate drain to recoil...

Edit 2: Not to mention the astral fireworks display would be enough to give Chicago a run for it's money.

[Apathy]

[Siege]

We all have.

But throw in a trauma damper which removes 1 block of Stun automatically and you get 7 boxes of L stun, each resisted individually (by canon).

So a trauma damper would render render all seven of the Drain tests moot.

And the mage has a reasonable chance of being able to nickle-and-dime the target to death.

-Siege

[Jason Farlander]

SR3 181

[Ol' Scratch]

Considering what the same mage could do with a single casting of the spell with all the dice, and add in the fact that the target would only get a single resistance test (instead of getting to use seven times his Body or Willpower in dice overall), it's pretty much a lame tactic.

If you had multiple low- to moderate-threat opponents, it'd almost be worthwhile to split your dice between all of them if you had to take them down as quickly as you could with your niche specialty character. But what's the point? You could do far worse by taking Ambidexterity 4 and the Pistols skill (4 shots, all of them with your full Pistols skill rating and no drain either) without having to specialize into such a silly character type.

It's just a dumb tactic, not a broken one.