Elemental manipulations, That bit you in the hoop Options

[hyzmarca]

An old console RPG has gotten me thinking about elemental manipulations and their consequences. In Final Fantasy 6 there were a a few spells that would cause an absurd amount of damage to both your enemies and your own party indisciminatly. (Tornado, Earthquake and Merton if I remember correctly)
Casting one of these spells without the proper elemental protections would be suicide.

Now, a magician can cast stunball, manaball, powerball, and all sorts of other area combat spells without worrying about being caught in them. The magician is in control of where the mana goes. Slaughter human wouldn't be fun if it would kill the human caster after all.

However, with elemental manipulations the caster has no control over the spell once it has been cast. The element simply move along untill it hits something. This helps get around LOS restrictions but it can cause problems if the magician is caught is too close to the target.

The average mage will be engulfed by his own fireball at six meters or less. For high grade initiates can easily kill themselves and their teammates if they don't withhold enough dice.
Lets not forget GDs and IEs, who some attribute initiate grades in the 80's or above to. They won't be able to drop their area elemental spells down to a reasonable size without 150 or more sorcery dice. Harlequin isn't going to be throwing around fireballs unless he has an asbestos suit.

So, next time your mage throws an area elemental manip, make sure you know exactly how close he is to the eipcenter.

[Herald of Verjig...]

You can stunball yourself if the epicenter is too close, also you can be affected by a badly selected slaughter spell in the same circumstances. All area spells affect all valid targets in the area/LoS requirement, the mage cannot pick and choose. Also, based on the comments about the fiber-optic system in SOTA63, a fireball will not stop and detonate early, it will do whatever it can to reach the targetted point and detonate there. Even if it includes burning through the cubicle farm.

[fistandantilus4....]

One advantage initiates have is shielding. Example: in melee with (or soon to be in) a number of opponents. most mages don't have a hot enough melee skill to stay up long, but they usually have an edge on will. Throw up a few points of shielding on themselves, and drop a manaball, starting at light or moderate damage. It'll be a lot easier to stage up the damage on average targets, and easier to resist it yourself w/ shielding dice.

Usually the only time I ever try for an elemental manip is when I'm trying to get a secondary effect, like cooking off ammo. Fun when you run into the scary guys packing APDS. You can disarm them and hurt them at the same time. Otherwise, the drain usually isn't worth it (IMO).

[kackling kactuar]

I've never really been in a situation where elemental manipulations are actually useful, although I acknowledge that such a situation is possible. The high drain and the ability to both dodge and resist their effects pretty much kills their utility for me.

[fistandantilus4....]

I'm not sure if it's canon or not, but I apply modifiers to dodging the area effect manipulations . Harder to dodge a fire BALL than a lightning BOLT. Like shotgun/autofire modifiers. So that helps a bit.

[kackling kactuar]

Sure, the AoE variant is harder to dodge, but it'll also nail you with significantly nastier drain.

[fistandantilus4....]

yep yep.... expendable spell focus .. yep yep

[kackling kactuar]

Expendable spell foci can also be used with combat spells. :)

[fistandantilus4....]

fetishes, lower target number.... yes, can also be used with mana spells. But they don't cook off ammo or fry cyberware. Get slightly higher drain, with more helpful side effects. It's really hard for your opponent to shoot back when all his ammo and grenades go off becuase you tagged him w/ a fireball, and he has to resist all that damage, without armor.

[hahnsoo]

I like the low, low target numbers for Elemental Manipulations. Also, they count as ranged attacks, and thus are affected by Enhanced Aim (which affect all ranged attacks). EMs with a TN of 2 can be pretty deadly. The drain is the major bummer for them... dodging an EM is about as easy as dodging an attack from a very skilled marksman. They have their uses.

[kackling kactuar]

You have at best a 1 in 3 chance of pulling off a secondary effect, which, in my opinion, isn't worth the extra drain. Fetishes don't help much since it isn't cost-effective to cast elemental manipulations at a force higher than 1 in most situations anyway. Considering that elemental spells at a useful damage level have about, if not more than, the same drain as a D level combat spell, you might as well just kill them directly through the application of deadly damage instead of praying for a secondary effect to do it for you.

Plus you're sorta screwed if your enemy is using fire and electricity resistant gear.

[hahnsoo]

[kackling kactuar]

The drawback of using a sustaining focus to sustain Enhanced Aim is that you can't use it to sustain another spell.

[fistandantilus4....]

besides, throw 2 force 6 flamethrower/fireballs at force 6, statistically, you should get the secondary effect. With a fetish (which every mage should have) you make make it easier on you, as well as with centering, or foci. It's really not that hard, and an easy way to take away your opponents ability to fight, especially on mundanes.
Toxic wave= degrade equipment
fireball= destroy ammo
lightning= effect cyber

and like you said, easier to tag an initiate with shielding than it would be with... say.. a manaball

[hahnsoo]

[fistandantilus4....]

[kackling kactuar]

[fistandantilus4....]

throw it at light. target #2, or even 3 or 4, is pretty easy to stage up. The elem effect isn't effected by the dmg lv, just the force

[hahnsoo]

[hahnsoo]

[fistandantilus4....]

I stand corrected.

There you go with that book again! ;)

Edit:So to clarify, since MiTS supercedes SR3 core, it wouldn't be the BASE damage inflicted, but the net/staged up damage level that would apply for the elemental effect. So you could still stage it up from light, correct?

This post has been edited by fistandantilus3.0: Apr 16 2005, 07:46 AM

[hahnsoo]

[fistandantilus4....]

This sounds like a job for SHADOWFAQ MAN!

[Edward]

You may only have a ½ or 1/3 chance of getting the secondary effect but when you cast at a target with 5 grenades on his belt the chance of detonating at least one with a fire based spell is pretty good.

Especially when you start throwing around force 3 base deadly fireballs retaining a few dice from sorcery to soak the 2D+2 drain (I think).

Let us run n example. A starting spell caster with sorcery 6 spell pool 6 and will 6 (the best you can get) casts fireball at a group of enemies, selecting a base deadly damage and force 3 (or 4 with a fetish). He uses 4 sorcery dice to cast giving a high chance of a success at target 4, he allocates his 6 will 2 sorcery and 4 spell pool to drain resistance

The fireball almost certainly deals some damage to the targets. Each target is carrying one gun with a clip of bullets, a spare clip and 1 or 2 grenades they are probably all dead when there ammunition detonates.

Drain of 2(D+2) now must be resisted. With dice target 2 10 successes are probable drain is soaked to nothing.

Not a bad trick as far s I can tell.

Edward

[hahnsoo]