Since this is the only spell where in the description it mentions Thresholds for certain levels of effect, I make my mages choose which Threshold they are trying to acheive, and then they cast the spell on a pass/fail basis. I believe if it were meant to be the other way the developers would have just set up a table where number of hits decided what effect would be achieved. Just curious what other people were doing with this one.

Since you also have to match the force depending on the number of hits you want to count, a player can set his upper limit by choosing a respective force.
If his hits aren't enough for, say, Increase +3 but would suffice for Increase +1 I'd let him have it.
He still has to cope with the higher drain anyway...

I agree completely with the last post.

(Damn! I'm soo slow today)

Cheers,

Max, the decreased reflexes guy.

Edit: a coma

Actually, this thought struck me too. The way its worded lead me to think pretty much the same thing you did, for the same reason. But really, I'm probably just sadistic.

Them setting the Force is paying to have the chance for having the higher. If they don't get that many hits they still can have the lower (and as Feshy points out take the higher drain anyway).

It has nothing in there about guessing how many hits they're going to get, or prepicking the level they want. Would you to that with Assensing, they have say what they're trying to see and if they don't roll that many they don't get it at all? Would you do that with a combat spell, or shooting a firearm, they have to say how many extra dice DV they are going to add beyond hitting the target and if they don't get that they miss the target entirely?

*shrug*

EDIT: That said "divide by 2" wierdness rears it's ugly head here even moreso. Assuming your Magic is at least 3 so you don't flip to Physical, why ever cast at Force 2 when Force 3 is the same Drain? Drain DV: Force + 2 would be mucho better IMO.

Thatd make drain much more lethal.

Sounds like a good house rule for toning down magic though.

Force of spell determines max threshold. I don't think the players should need to set a single threshold they're going for beforehand. Spellcasters don't chooseto deal 6 damage or nothing with their force 4 mannaball, so why go this way with the initiative spell?

I'm personally considering the rammifications of increasing the thresholds from 2/3/4 to 2/4/6 respectively. This is because although I agree that magic should peak at being able to improve initiative at the same cap as cyber or any other boost, I don't think it should be easily doable for starting characters. 5 Magic + 5 Spellcasting + 2 Power Focus = 12 dice, enough to on-average get the +3 bonuses under the base system. The problem with this system is that it puts a middle-threshold (+2 bonus) sustaining focus unavailable at chargen (Availability=F*4).

Fixed my last post. Trying to avoid the perpetuation of my mistake to others.