[X] My Assistant

[JaronK]

Many totems give a bonus of +2 dice to a school of magic. Are these dice like pool dice, able to be split up among the drain and casting tests; are they restricted to just +2 dice to cast the spell, or are they bonuses to both drain and casting of the spell?

So, for example, a cat shaman wants to cast force 5 Mass Confusion (cat gives +2 dice for illusion spells). He's got sorcery 6 and willpower 6, with 6 spell pool, and puts 4 pool dice into casting and 2 into resisting drain. He ends up casting with:

1) 10 casting dice and 8 drain dice, but he could add 2 to either of those or 1 to both
2) 12 casting dice and 8 drain dice
3) 12 casting dice and 10 drain dice.

Which is it?

JaronK

[Jebu]

The main book isn't exactly clear about that, but I've read it as applying to both sorcery and drain resistance tests. Also, in MitS the rules about ritual sorcery say that the totem modifiers apply to both. Pages 37 and 38. So it'd be 3) 6 + 4 + 2 for sorcery test and 6 + 2 + 2 for drain resistance test.

Edit: minor rephrasing.

[Fortune]

Option #1 is the only option I have ever used, or even seen used.

[Jebu]

Well yes, I read the focus rules and those bonuses can be divided between sorcery and drain resistance, but does it actually say the same for totem modifiers somewhere? In SR3, p. 163 under Totem Modifiers it says

[tisoz]

Strictly by his example, he is dividing totem bonus between casting and drain. But to get the same effect he could apply the full totem bonus to either and shift a pool die to make it look like +1 die to each.

[torzzzzz]

I had a Cat shaman and i only used option 1 form above!

torz x :vegm:

[Fortune]

[Fortune]

[Eyeless Blond]

[Charon]

What if I told you the shaman bonus dice applied only to casting? Then you'd invest 2 less sorcery and magic pool dice on casting and two more on drain.

What if I told you the shaman bonus dice applied only to Drain? Then you'd invest 2 less sorcery and magic pool dice on drain and two more on casting.

What if... Oh never mind. The end reult is the same anyway : you roll 2 additional dice.

You even get them for spell defense, after a fashion. You can have, in your example, 10 casting dice, 8 drain dice and 2 spell defense dice. The bottom line is you have 14 dice available to you this round. If the GM tries to tell you the bonus dice can only go in one category, you just tell him they are in that category.

[Fortune]

[Eyeless Blond]

Um, the word "may"?

Sorry, a bit too lazy to go looking things up atm.

[Fortune]

[tisoz]

[Jebu]

I'd still say the books aren't very clear about it when the only reference is the word 'may' in ritual sorcery rules. There's no 'may' in the sorcery test part, so it always applies there? And in addition it can be applied to drain resistance, because it says 'may' in there? And if you play with main book and no MitS, you 'may' apply the modifier whatever way you interpret the rule in SR3?

[Fortune]

Whatever. As I said earlier, I've never known anyone to use it the way you suggest, and it would never work that way in my games.

[Jebu]

I understand that, Fortune. I'd just like to know if there's a rule that's more clear about it. Seems there aren't. I agree applying modifiers to both rolls would make shamans more powerful, even if the same applies to negative modifiers, because most people don't pick much, if any, spells with negative modifiers.

[BitBasher]

In my game I always let them add (or subtract) the totem dice from all appropriate tests, if they had +2 for combat and they cast a combat spell then they get +2 for the casting nad +2 for the drain. It was never referred to as a pool, and I never saw a way to treat it as such.

[hahnsoo]

It's also referred to in direct reference to Sorcery and Conjuring:

[Necro Tech]

That's what my group agreed on. It only says sorcery and conjuring and drain is damage resistance with its own test with its own rules. Also, crab shamans get a benefit to drain resistance in the form of +1 to all damage resistance tests.

Ritual sorcery is a stated exception which implies that it isn't an option at other times.

[Glyph]

Of course, a shaman can always effectively apply Totem bonuses to Drain, by allocating more Sorcery dice to the Drain test and letting the Totem bonus make up for the lost Sorcery dice.

But you don't get the bonus for both spellcasting and Drain. Ugh. That would give a Dragonslayer shaman the equivalent of 6 extra dice every time he uses a combat spell. Shamanic bonuses are powerful enough already.