In order to even start getting bonus dice with must devices you're going to need 5 successes (which gets you 1 die.) start subtracting dice for sustaining a spell (force 5 or 6 sustaining foci are pretty pricey,) and you start having a pretty useless spell quickly. I lnow you could have the spirit sustain it (or even cast it for you) but on it's own it seems like a fairly useless spell unless you can use it on low/no tech devices (clubs swords etc.)

That's why you have to "cheat" by not sustaining it yourself. Use edge and a focus when you cast it and a sustaining focus or bound spirit when you sustain it and you'll find it's much more useful.

Indeed, that is why I prefer the sprite version.

You could also put it to the ritual spellcasting charts - with enough mojo, you can make any member of your group a master at some said skill...and let someone else hold the sustaining.

perfect if you got the ultimate handy man's handbook and you don't want to pay one of the cheap guys when you can just teach your troll how to fix all the busted stuff (especially if he busted them)!

Or you can analyze an assualt rifle if your GM allows it.

You break the limit on hits by using Edge. Ritual Spellcasting and Edge are sweet for any buffers, for that matter.

You still need on average of 9 dice from a teammate for each success over what you could do on your own. Is that worth your time? Is it worth theirs?

Fanatics vote yes on that: Why hire the sniper when you can analyze one of your guys to be an expert marksmen? Short of adepts, you never really pass the 6-7 skill mark anyways, and a snipe rifle has a threshold of what, 3? 4 if it's really, really fancy and complex? Just make sure you have some good backup for the drain on at least the one sustaining and medics on standby for the nose bleeders and you're set!

THe Fanatics would probably use ritual blood magic anyways, to minimize mushy brains a bit (silly concept, but it works, guarantee most drain won't kill you if you shunt part of it into damage in the first place and use all those extra drain dice to negate the rest).

...but unless you're SR team is a bunch of mages, yeah, not exactly a common thing you'd see there. *shrugs*

you mean, "is it worth a few hours of downtime to give the sammy a +1 bonus to his gun tests, per extra person involved" (since 9 dice isn't gonna be all that horribly uncommon) i would have to say, absolutely.

but that's just the beginning. is it worth it to give your team hacker a +1 bonus (per extra person involved) to any test where he uses his commlink? i would have to say so.

in comparison, how many hours of downtime does it take to make a spellcasting focus? how many points of karma for the skills needed?

i don't think too many people would argue against the value of a spellcasting focus for the team mage, or a counterspell focus... why wouldn't you accept the worthwhile nature of a force 1 sustaining focus with edge-boosted ritual spellcasting backing it up?

and when that extra dice makes the difference between the hacker setting off an alarm, or the sammy knocking someone as opposed to just hurting them, i don't think there's much room to argue.

By "is it theirs" I meant, why on earth do you know several mages who want to spend several hours standing around and then take a drain hit just to help provide an extra die to your team sniper or whatever? If youv'e got two mages on your team, sure, one of them can help the other. But that's hardly an improvement over casting the spell yourself.

And in the Analyze context this is even sillier. You need 9 dice per teamate to improve the teamleader's success...which give the spell recipient one die. Woohoo! "Just burn edge and do it yourself if it's that important to you" is more often the right answer. SR4 rituals are much less powerful than in SR3; the prinicple (or at least most efficient) use of ritual spellcasting in SR4 is for ranged attacks, not big spells.

But if you're doing this sort of thing in your game, may I suggest that slamming a fireball through a material link might be a better idea for your assembled team than just giving one dude a couple of extra dice for using a firearm?

fireballs are messy, and leave a big friggin signature in the middle of public mayhem to be scanned. a bullet only has the makers seal on it.

It's good for you when the CSI is having a bad day, thank you.

i imagine it wouldn't be hard for someone to find a few other mages who would be willing to assist in a ritual if you pay them decently. after all, 500 for a day's work where you aren't likely to be shot or hunted down by the law is always nice.

add on an ally spirit or two, maybe a regular spirit or two to give aid sorcery dice, and it all starts to add up. cheap? probably not. but like i said, in the right situation (again, give the hacker +X to all hacking tests is no small thing) it could very well be worth it.

Feh. So as a normal spell it's useless, but if you munchkin it out with a ludicrously improbably ritual and several hours of prep it becomes not only good, but extremely powerful?

That, to me, is not a sign of a well-designed spell. How would you change it it make it better though?

Make the spell foci be the weapon or skill of choice to be analyzed so you have tools on hand, and an extra reserve for drain as you charge up the spell?

In truth, analyze device helps to keep all those pesky penalties from kicking your ass when you try to remember what alt + F4 does on the super computer. Low scale, it is the jack of all trades spell. High scale, it makes sexy ninja assassins that glow like a white christmas on the astral plane

It doesn't say explicitely, but in sr3 the spell didn't work with "devices" like guns swords etc; and I'd imagine the same holds true.
The only thing that I can think of off the top of my head that it might work well with would be a lock pick set- threshold of 2, six successes (you hope) makes +4d
As to doing it ritually, doesn't the spell still have to be sustained by someone? Your hired mages probnably won't want to do that.

there are no penalties for sustaining a ritually cast spell, at least none beyond the usual penalties. Even if you did force 9, got all 9 hits, that's 7 dice from 'skill' alone. that -2 from sustaining is a small price under the situation. Mind, if someone else holds the spell, then the one benefiting doesn't have to worry about accidentally dropping it and can focus more on the work.

And the key issue with analyze device is it doesn't really explain 'how' you pick what you learn. it makes sense that if you use it on a gun you know how it works, what part is where, and the rough area that bullets will hit if you look along it thanks to barrel size and other things....but we don't know if that's how it works. For all one knows, you need a book on 'so you want to be an expert at hand guns' before you can do that.

But since it uses object resistance for threshold, that goes along with the theory of items themselves at least (if not books). It makes some skills trickier to figure out if you can use them - do you risk getting slapped by the gymnast for holding her bum while you cast the spell to become an expert, or not?

Indeed it's kind of an odd spell to begin with. What literature source was used for inspiration for the spell? How is it supposed to work? Are you really only meant to gain a relevant B/R or Knowledge skill for the duration, or is the bonus to the particular Active skill for the main use of the device? Do you gain dice to secondary uses; for instance do you gain bonus dice for pistol-whipping someone, even though that's not the primary purpose of a handgun?

Considering the money to make them do that may get them a few units of orichalcum, they would definitely consider it if they needed the units badly enough.

That's another thing. You don't have to pay for those magical enhancements with money. Give the mages helping you the magical booty you get on missions. If you're successful, they get paid, and often. Mages would love that kind of income.

Voodoo circle, + honfour + force 9 task spirit + serviteur = hacker from hell, move aside fastjack