The new description of the Bear "mentor spirit" grants +2 dice to Health spells and +2 dice to resist "physical damage".

Does this mean the shaman receives +2 dice to resist physical drain for overcasting a spell, resulting in potential physical damage?

Well strictly speaking I'd say no. As you're not resisting physical damage specificaly, you're resisting drain. Granted that drain may happen to result in physical damage, but you're not resisting physical damage in and of itself.

Ofcourse I could be wrong here.

The drain is automatically physical, unless resisted - in which case, no damage is incurred.

The drain, if the force of the spell cast is under the Magic rating, then it's automatically Stun, unless resisted.

Once the drain is invoked, it's either Mental or Physical - resisting the damage from "drain" is no different than resisting a bullet from a firearm.

For example, a gel round is Stun and a standard bullet is Physical - but they're both coming from the same source.

-Siege

True but in that case you're resisting damage, in this case you're considered to be resisting drain. somantics I know but.. as I said I could be wrong. just the way I interperate things. I'm just giving you my best take on the subject.

No offense intended or taken - I just wanted to test the waters.

"Drain" or "bullet" or "rock" - these are all different names for types of injury, yet none of these are directly classified outright as "physical damage", pending a GM or rules specification.

I look forward to other opinions on the subject.

-Siege

Since there is no rule specifically prohibiting physical drain from being magically healed (thereby treating it as physical damage), I would say that, yes, the Bear Shaman's bonus applies to resisting Physical Drain.

Or, pne could interperate it to mean any damage that is causes by a physical source rather than a magical, meaning that the dice would be applied to mental damage resistance from being clubed but not physical damage from a powerbolt.

Yes, it is a stupid interperation.

They use the capitalized "Physical", i'm pretty sure they are talking about only that one side of the condition monitor.

Outside that i think it is close enough call that it could go either way....and i'm personally inclined to go with Fortune's reasoning. It does strike me that the Heal your Physical Drain damage could be somewhat exploitable, but you do have survive and it's damn dicey to be trying to Heal up in the middle of a firefight.

Considering that First Aid now can treat Stun Damage, it wouldn't be that much of an 'exploit', too.

Overall it seems in SR4 that if you can survive the immediate, and you have at least one person on the team get through with low wound penalties, the team with wide spread First Aid/Heal is in a lot less trouble than in SR3. The important thing though is to have that one healthish skilled runner, because with the way Stun tends to get mixed in more with Physical damage you can easily be pushing -5 or -6 dice, and Trolls more like -8 dice and still be walking wounded.

EDIT: And First Aid checks are NOT something you want to be risking a Critical Glitch because they can flat out kill.

So someone with a real good First Aid Skill and possibly a Specialization in Combat Wounds (here it is actually very beneficial to consider a Specialization an Augmented Skill Rating - the max number of Boxes healed are limited to Skill) is worth gold - the old trick of using a Skillsoft has just become quite a gamble... even for Medicine it is not that good, though usually less critical.

If you aren't highly skilled at First Aid (or are too wounded), you are better off letting the Medkit handle it all by itself (substituting it's rating for your skill).