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Everial
So... magic spells normally ignore the effects of personal armor, if not vehicle. Wouldn't this possibly lead to Hardened armor (or some other form) also interfering or complicating spellcasting? If there are rules on this (which there probably are) someone mind pointing them out to me?

BTW, this was inspired by the 'Invincible Drone?' Thread... I'm just wondering about how much metal/ceramic/stuff/etc one needs to be wearing for spellcasting difficulties.

Follow up: would bone lacing / dermal sheathing affect spellcasting?
Crusher Bob
The excuse for magic ignoring armor has always been that spells target your aura, not your body. Since the armor you are wearing is not part of your aura, the spells ignore it.
Clipwing
The way I understand it, armor is supposed to interfere with magic for vehicles because it's an integral part of the structure itself. So armor should only work for metahumans if it is also implanted, i.e. dermal plating/shething and orthoskin, since once you pay Essence/Body Index for something it becomes a part of you. And I think that Dermal plating/sheathing does in fact increase your body attribute, making it harder for spells to hit you and giving more resistance dice, but come to think of it, I don't think there are any magic-related effects from orthoskin... perhaps there should be!
Kagetenshi
I vary between thinking the rules for vehicle spell resistance are absurd and thinking that they're a necessary part of anti-mage balancing.
Regardless, the poster above was correct in stating that no nonimplanted armor will give difficulty with any sort of spell. Low essence, though, really should (does it and I've just forgotten?).

~J
Clipwing
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
Regardless, the poster above was correct in stating that no nonimplanted armor will give difficulty with any sort of spell. Low essence, though, really should (does it and I've just forgotten?).

Nah, no such luck. You can target a cybermantic zombie with no problem, aside from their magical resistance... Ok, bad example, but aside from cybermancy, Essence doesn't affect spell difficulty aside from healing spells and such where Essence is part of the TN. I think there was some explanation for this in some sourcebook sometime (SR2? I don't have it anymore so I can't look...), but that's the way it goes.
Lilt
If you really want to screw-over mages then apply cover modifiers to people wearing armor. That way you'd either have a huge penalty on the casting check (+4 or so) or you'd have to blast off their armor first (TN8 or so).

There are no rules, afaik, for normal armor/barrier ratings increacing the target number/having a resistance check against spells. There perhaps should be, however, as otherwise a force 3 deadly powerball is easily capable of destroying most brick/concrete structures in a single shot.
Reth
I've noticed some talk about powerbolt/ball spells and vehicle armors and i have some comments on this subject. In the rulebook it says that the TN's for using combat spells on vehicles are calculated thus: OR + Body + 1/2 Armor and the spell must have a force that are higher than the vehicles armor rating. But in the official errata for the rulebook it says that in order for a combat spell to affect a vehicle the spells force must equal or surpass: OR + Body + 1/2 Armor divided by 2 which of course makes excellent sense since it is the same formula that is used to calculate TN's, but it can not still be true that you also have to compare the force to armor rating since armor is already factored in the above formula, besides it would be plain silly if you had to sit and check against two seperate rules each time you wanted to cast a spell at a vehicle. Personally i think they meant to scratch the force>armor rating and just forgot to do it properly in the errata. Logically it also makes sense that armor is less important than Body when it comes to vehicles and magic, since the body rating is the most important statement about a vehicles structural integrety, armor only helps partially since armors primary concern is to defend against attacks that come from outside the vehicle, but a combat spell damages its target ( person or object ) from the inside out, hence armor is not as effective against a spell as it is against a gunshot. Elmental manipulation spells are ofcourse another matter.

concerning the idea about giving characters cover modifiers against magic if they are wearing armor, now that would be grossly unfair. There are much more fair ways to inhibit mages, fx. if the opposition are wearing camo suits or jackets appropriate to the terrain, then ranged combat tests receive a +2 mod. to TN because the targets outline are blurred, it would completely reasonable to apply the same mod. to magical TN's.
Cain
QUOTE
So... magic spells normally ignore the effects of personal armor, if not vehicle. Wouldn't this possibly lead to Hardened armor (or some other form) also interfering or complicating spellcasting? If there are rules on this (which there probably are) someone mind pointing them out to me?

The closest thing in the books is Shielding. That doesn't quite work the same way, but it's close, and enough Shielding can make spellcasting on you virtually impossible.

The Spell Shield spell also works, as do astral barriers. One of my old tricks in 2nd ed was to spell-lock an astral barrier spell onto a set of armor. You didn't have to worry about grounding or astral attack until they brike the barrier, which pretty much killed the focus anyways.
Everial
So any rule suggestions for individuals with orthoskin, bone lacing, muscle replacement, or cyberlimbs?
Reth
Well you already get other benefits from bone lacing, muscle replacement...etc and then you would want extra benefits against magic from these implants, that would be severely overating those implants, and it is also a misunderstanding of how magic works. Armor and implants does not impair the mages ability to fx. astrally assense a target, which shows that these things in no way hinders a mages ability to perceive the targets aura, therefore it is also not a factor in spelltargeting since it is the aura that gets targeted ( with the exception of health spells ofcourse ). The reason why you cannot say "Well vehicles benefit from armor so i should benefit from that too", is because there is a very basic difference between characters and vehicles, characters is ALIVE. Even the most cybered up sammy is still alive, so Cain is quite right when he says that it is to magic you must look to get protection from magic ( or the magic resistance edge ). Hmm just goes to show ya, that even if you're a cybered street monster, skimp on that Willpower attribute and the mage will zap you every time with a manabolt/ball spell. Which is exactly why a mage worth his salt has both a mana bolt/ ball for cyber types and a power bolt/ball for magicians since they tend to skimp on the Body attribute.
Lilt
A good force powerbolt/ball is useful against far more than just magicians. You can use them to blast walls, nuclear reactor pressure domes, guns, ETC. If a character casts a force 4+ powerball and gets one 8 or higher on the casting then almost everything (guns, armor, mirrored sunglasses, walls) takes the level of damage that the spell was cast at. Now that's useful for more than just taking-out mages.

As for cybered armor: Most of what gives you armor also gives you body so it does partly help against physical spells. Possibly allowing a character extra body dice on the resistance test vs physical combat spells if they have natural armor, but no TN modifier for the casting? It would definately not give you a bonus versus manna spells as they damage your aura.
Reth
completely true about PB being effective against lots of other stuff than just mages, i merely specified that particular use of the spell since mages tend to be difficult to get with other types of spells.

Yes i forgot to mention the benefit from increased body in regards to dices. Same thing goes for cyber/bio that increases quickness and intelligence. Nothing increases Willpower as i recall, so again don't skimp om that attribute or you're fried since both mana spells, stun spells and control spells target that attribute.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Lilt)
If you really want to screw-over mages then apply cover modifiers to people wearing armor. That way you'd either have a huge penalty on the casting check (+4 or so) or you'd have to blast off their armor first (TN8 or so).

I disagree. You should never have to deal with cover modifiers at all except in the perception test to find the person, as they're in LOS regardless of whether their entire body is or just their hand is. Furthermore, this is why optical scopes will never extend LOS, as you can target anyone you can see with a spell at the same TN, regardless of whether they're invading your personal space or at the limit of visibility several kilometers away. Only time a scope should help is in identifying that that speck on the horizon is a person.

~J

Postscript: It does, however, get messy if you start wondering what happens if people go in wearing full-body protective clothing with some electronic vision system, thus leaving no part of their actual body exposed.
Talia Invierno
Wasn't it combat spells specifically that ignored armour? Manipulation spells actually created the effect which only then interacted with you - so armour against manipulations works just fine (if not usually nearly enough).
TinkerGnome
QUOTE (Talia Invierno)
Manipulation spells actually created the effect which only then interacted with you - so armour against manipulations works just fine (if not usually nearly enough).

You get half impact against elemental manipulations, I think.
Zazen
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
I disagree. You should never have to deal with cover modifiers at all except in the perception test to find the person, as they're in LOS regardless of whether their entire body is or just their hand is.

The book disagrees. It explicitly states that cover modifiers are used for spellcasting.

I think the explanation is that it's harder to synch auras when you can't see all of it, if I remember right.
Cochise
QUOTE (Zazen)
I think the explanation is that it's harder to synch auras when you can't see all of it, if I remember right.

The problem is that aura synch is no longer necessary in SR3 ...
You couldn't even cast a spell against objects if that explaination was still valid.

And there is a slight difference between elemental manpiulations and the rest of the spells: The rules for targeting spells do refer to the vision modifiers in perception tests on page 232 SR3 and not the ranged combat table on page 112(?). And the table for vision modifiers does only have a +2 modifier for partially covered targets and not the +4 (or +2, +4, +6 depending on coverage from CC) mod for partial cover in ranged combat.
The only spells that use the ranged combat table are elemental manipulations.
Zazen
Well, whatever the explanation, the fact remains. Cover affects spellcasting TNs. I'm sure there's some explanation for it in flavor text someplace.
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