Quick question.

What is the point of a Mage/Shaman casting Heal, Treat, or any other spell on a willing target, at a Force of higher than 1? It seems like a higher Force would only serve to increase the drain code, and offer no greater effectiveness to the spell, since there is no Spell Resistance roll.

Only possible thing I can think of as to why you'd want to cast those spells at greater than Force 1 is an enemy Mage/Shaman trying to dispell them or something?

Help me figure this out. I started my game last Saturday, 6 players and we've played twice already -- everyone's loving it, but we're having trouble getting all the rules down.

P.S. What are the best books for SR3 NPC and location stats? I'm trying to use the huge collection of SR1/SR2 sourcebooks and adventures I've found at used bookstores, (I like the artwork/flavor better) and need a way to speed up the conversions.

If you want to heal/treat more than one box of damage, mostly. Healed damage is capped at Force.

As for locations… well, not so much location "stats", but New Seattle has a good collection (as does the original Seattle). Shadowrun Companion has a decent amount of NPC stats, IIRC, but my advice is to just get familiar enough to do it on the fly—with non-unique NPCs it's pretty easy, you just take all 3s on the stats, adjust for race and desired competence, and go to town.

~J

Okay, that makes more sense. Do you have a page ref # on that? I can't seem to find it anywhere... in the Heat/Treal description, or elsewhere in the Magic chapter. Maybe I have an early pressing of the book.

Another clarification --

Mage/Shaman casts Heal/Treat... successes are used to decrease the time for it to become permanent. Does the Mage/Shaman have to sustain the spell during that time? Is the damage healed after that time is over...?

K10, where does FanPro say that healing spells only take effect after they become permanent? in SR3, at least, it's quite clear that permanent spells take effect as soon as they are cast, but only become permanent after they have been sustained for the required amount of time.

Didn't we just go through this?

forgot about that. it's insane, at any rate--another case of the FAQ answer clearly contradicting the actual rules.

Okay. I think I got it. Let me give an example and let me know if I'm doin this right.

Character A has a 4 boxes of damage (a Moderate wound.)
Character B has Essence 5.8, Sorcery 6, Heal 4, Willpower 5.

B casts Heal at full force 4 on A, rolling against TN 5. (10-5.8, rounded down.) He gets 3 successes.

This means that B must sustain the spell for 10 turns, and heals 3 boxes of A's damage (had he rolled 5 successes, he'd be healing 4 boxes of damage). Alternatively he could instead heal 1 box of damage and allocate two of the three successes to reduce the base time to 5 turns. The damage is healed instantly, within B's same complex action -- but if B is interrupted before the 10 turns are up, A reverts back, losing all healing gain. Immediately B makes a drain test against 2M. (Force 4/2 = 2.)

This leaves one big question. What constitutes B's interruption? Does it mean that, no matter what (damage, etc.) as long as he is conscious and sustaining the spell (+2TN to all tests) then the spell still goes permanent after 10 rounds?

In the same example, if the spell were Treat the only difference is that the time would be halved (to 5 rounds)? (Drain would stay the same 4-1 = 3, 3/2 = 1.5... rounded up to 2M.)

Am I forgetting anything? I have two Shamans in my game, one with Treat, the other with Heal, so I gotta get this right.

yes, going unconscious or voluntarily dropping a spell are pretty much the only things that can interrupt the caster. i suppose walking into a null magic zone would do it too.

The 10-Essence is the Essence of the Target, not the spellcaster.

Okay, got it. Also just read that taking any damage requires a Sorcery test at the Force of the spell + damage modifiers. No successes means you drop the spell.

Another question.

Fireball's Drain Code for damage level is Damage Level + 2

If a Mage is casting Fireball at M damage, is the drain code D? Or M + two boxes? If the latter, how does this work in terms of staging down the damage? What happens if the Mage wants to cast it at S damage?

M + 2 = D

When the Damage Level is staged past Deadly, the Power is increased by 2.

So, a Force 4 Manaball cast at Deadly would have a Drain of 4D. A Force 4 Fireball cast at Serious would have a final Drain of 5D (7D if cast at Deadly, while only 3D cast at Moderate).

Damage is never per-box—you will only ever accumulate it in particular discrete amounts (1, 3, 6, 10, and the extensions for naval damage).

~J

Which is why you learn things like first aid, or Stabilize and/or Hibernate spells.

[edit]Just noticed that K10 had my comment in one of his