I was curious the other day about what it'd take to be an unequipped spellcaster with the capacity to, under average dice rolls, one-shot pretty much anyone with a single Stunbolt.

I chose Stunbolt because A) Generally Stun tracks are shorter than Physical tracks, so it'll likely be more globally effective and B) if this is going to be a caster's primary and signature spell, it should have a low drain code so it can be cast more often.

So my target of choice is a Dwarf with Exceptional Attribute: Willpower. You're looking at a Willpower of 8, which gives a Stun track of 12 boxes.

Working backwards, we can assume that a Willpower of 8 will generate about 2.66 hits per roll. I'm going to bump that up to an even 3 to give us a mild safety margin and keep the math simple.

This means our target will likely negate 3 boxes of incoming Stun per spell. Since we're looking to drop him from fresh to a net of 12 boxes, that means our casting needs to do an average of 15S. A tall order.

Let's construct our mage with the Qualities of Magician (15), Aptitude: Sorcery (10), and Mentor Spirit (5). The Mentor will be someone/something that gives +2 to Combat spells, of course. We'll max out our Spellcasting at 7, then Specialize in Combat spells (2). That leaves our mage throwing an impressive 11 dice on Combat spells.

So now the question becomes: At what Force should the Stunbolt be cast to insure that bullheaded dwarf drops?

To answer that, we need to decide one more thing first: What the caster's Magic attribute is. Let's assume that the caster doesn't like the idea of taking Physical drain, so the maximum Force of the Stunbolt will equal the caster's Magic. That, too, makes the math easy to chew on.

What if the target has spell defense (Oops, I mean counterspelling dice) from a friendly mage?

Oh, and if you don't care about taking Physical drain, then at minimum you need to have a Magic of 6 (Spellcasting 6 assumed), casting the Stunbolt at 12.

That'll leave you with a raw damage output of 16S at the price of 5P drain.

So basically even a non-initiate can one-shot someone with a Stunbolt, it's just that they'll have spend a few rounds getting healed up afterwards.

We're also ignoring any foci the caster may have. After all, buying and Bonding foci at charater creation is chaep and easy.

Yep, again omitted due to wide variability.

Ah, come on. Twink it out. I don't have my book with me, but I'm thinking a force 2 or 3 power focus is well within the reach of a beginning character's resources, and a drain focus for the other end of the bargain.

For maximum power, you can cast multiple Stunbolts at once, and target them all on the same person. More than 2 has a chance of not breaking through their Willpower, but a pair of Force 5 stunbolts will knock down even superdwarf if they both hit, and has a Drain Code (for someone with Magic 5) of 2x 2S.

I may be wrong, but:

Doesnt a direct combat spell (like a stunbolt) work different ?

You only make the opposed test, to see whether the target is affected by the spell or not. If he is affected, he gets the damage and nothing more, if he is not affected he gets nothing.

The best way to oneshot someone:

1) make mage with magic 8, spellcasting 6 and edge 6.
2) cast force 15 manabolt and use edge.
3) one net hit = even a dragon is toasted.
4) take physical drain, almost die and spend a week healing.

... you can call it Rah Tilt (for people who know anime classic). it's defenitively one-shot - you really have only one shot per week

I wanna Ragnablade spell! That would rock. ^_^

I'm surprised there were never melee weapon "reach" spells. Kind of a step above touch range. Probably no drain adjustment (since the reach gives you a bonus to melee) but how would one handle the reach and damage? +1 reach to a max of 3 (or 4?) per two successes? I dunno.

Reminds me of the old Mageblade spells, including the classic lightsaber handle anchoring focus.