Is magic broken? As it is, spirits will wipe out anything without Manabolt, and magic can duplicate almost anything anyone else can do.

Then again, it is a huge karma sink.

I'm curious as to why the two people who've voted "yes" thus far -- or, really, the two that voted "no" for that matter -- haven't posted anything to back up their sentiments.

Some specific things are broken, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

and what's with you and polls?

A more pertinent question would be "What's with you and magic." And the answer is "It is 73|-| 4vv350|\/|3."

As for polls, I'm a populist. Not.

No, magic is not broken. And no, spirits do not wipe out everything (unless you use double digit spirits all the time).

A typical spirit of reasonable force is quite defeatable by a mundane.

Bye
Thanee

Magic is most certainly broken

if you do not believe me, then look at the effect of using a spirit of man for this simple trick

let it know a couple of spells you know (say armour and increase reflexes)

have it sustain them on you and maybe have it maintain concealment on oyu

make this puppy force 6 or so and you are a better sammy than the sammy, faster than the adept and tougher than the troll

add in the fact that you are better than invisible and things get truly disgusting.

EDIT: oh and before anyone mentions about the spirits as sustaining foci have the whole force reduction and angry issues... that is if it sustains a spell YOU cast... it is only sustaining a spell IT cast

spirits do have a check and balance- this is cost and services.

each trick a spirit does is a service. that costs you. and a spirit can be banished, removing it from the equation. banishing uses fewer resources than sumoning the spirit.

as for duplications- how many spells can one mage cast and maintain at a time? how long does it take the mage to go from no spells up, to being equal to a sam? how many times can that sam shoot him in that time? magic can do a lot, but its not all powerfull. mages are weaker when suprised. magic takes a lot of preperation to do properly. it can be just as expensive as a sams cyber, if not more so.

now, the real question comes down to, do you understand the many weaknesses of magic? all the ways a smart sam can geek the mage who IS ready for him?

A big enough Sprite can wipe out anything that doesn't have an Attack program, I'm not sure how that's different. Does that mean that Hacking is "broken" because spirits can't do anything about it?

-Frank

for those in thew shadowrunning busines, attack programs are far more common than having the ability to counter the spirit trick mentioned above

Guns have no drain!

So? you can't shoot what you can't see

Yes you can, assuming you have a reason to believe it's there. Blind fire is a hefty -6 penalty, but it is possible.

Also the "guns have no drain" comment is generally used to show that combat spells are not stronger than guns. Since you can shoot at things you can't see but cannot cast at them (except for the higher drain elemental attacks) that reply actually backs the position.

"Guns have no drain" says nothing about the power of noncombat spells, which is generally what people look at when deciding if magic is "broken" or not.

Scoped Panther Assault Cannons are broken. They can be fired at you from further away than almost any other weapon, meaning that the average character can't shoot back! That's so unfair!

Magic does some annoying shit, but it's not broken. As a GM, I'd say I have to work harder keeping the game's magic-opposing stuff in line than I do keeping almost any other aspect of the game in line, but this doesn't mean it's broken, just a PITA.

I am glad that the telecommuting mage has gotten less practical.

I haven't had too many problems with magic. Sometimes the group's mage walks all over stuff, sometimes he falls unconscious from drain. Sometimes he gets really frustrated because he's not sure why he can't seem to get Control Thoughts to work (he always picks the best protected ones to use it on). Magic is powerful at times, but it's also risky business. I like that. It keeps him on his toes. (Well, the fact that they were ambushed and nearly killed by a mage no more powerful than any one member of the group also keeps him on his toes.) Magic's not broken, it's dangerous.

Allow it? It's RAW. Guns have ammo, ammo costs money. Conjuring is free. And assuming you've got the dice and can resist the drain (not hard to figure out a decent stat build for this), there's no rule that I know of to prevent this.

I think overcasting to summon spirits is broken, but that's easy enough to houserule (note that I don't yet have Street Magic). Combat spells aren't any stronger than bullets and grenades, and most other spells can be countered with tactics and gadgets.

I voted no.

Combat spells aren't stronger? Get serious. Compare magic to a reasonably sized gun...lets say an ingram smartgun. Damage rating of 5p. Load it with EX-EX and burst fire, and you'll drive that up to 9P, plus hits (reduced by the defense test of the target), that then gets sent up against ballistic armor + BODY. Ballistic armor being the type that most people will have the most of. Now, try casting a manabolt at force 6. 6P, plus hits (there will be plenty of those), hits that won't be reduced by any dodge tests. I've almost never seen a force 6 spell get fewer than 3 hits, so that's at least 9P that goes up against Willpower (a stat that almost nobody uses for anything but resisting magic and Black IC) ALONE. No armor whatsoever.

Even if you go with an indirect combat spell like fireball (which can be used without LOS), you're still going up against Body + half of impact armor, way better than you'll get with a bullet (gel rounds go against impact armor, but add +2 to the armor rating). Combat spells are much, much better than bullets.

Emo likes the polls.

No pun intended.

Anyways; I don't believe magic is "broken" in any ways. Yes, it can be terribly powerful, but it's a double edge weapon. Very powerful magic can kill you really fast... and that works both ways: for the target and the caster. It's also a huge karma sink and being a mojo slinger usually means people will try to kill you first

It's not broken, it's just extreme in all it's advantages and disadvantages.

Casting a spell is a complex action. Shooting a burst is a simple action. IMO, a manabolt is stronger than a single burst, but not two.

Another point is that a 6 magic mage isn't going to have the body or edge attributes that the sammy has due to karma costs, so those bursts are going to be harder to resist than you imply.

Bullets also don't cause drain.

Magic and guns are about equal in my experience, with guns coming out slightly ahead (mostly because of the ability to fire twice per round). Where magic pulls ahead is in miscellaneous effects. Guns have a lot lower ability to take over someone's mind.

Actually, they do take over someone's mind and then blow it out of the back of their skulls Bullets can take over pretty fast on full auto. I wouldn't say magic is broken just powerful, as it should be. It should also be rare but that's up to each GM.

If you're talking about area spells you have to look at grenades and missiles, not bursts. Grenades are fairly comparable to the various ball spells. Exactly how well they compare depends on how you interpret the rules for dodging them.

But, firing off a pair of frag or HE grenades will probably do as much if not more damage, especially if you can manage to pull off the chunky salsa effect. Remember, Spell Casting is a Complex Action, so its power level should be compared to the effects of either a) another Complex Action or b) two Simple Actions devoted to offense.

It's also a lot cheaper (in terms of BP) to have versatility through your grenades with stun damage, physical damage, chemicals, and vision blockers (IR smoke is really fun).

Right, I said that earlier.

I'm specifically talking about the versatility of grenades vs. magical booms. Magic has more versatility with the oft-maligned elemental effects, but it's much more expensive in terms of build points to cover multiple bases of area attacks.

I don't know...you only have to buy an area effect spell once. You'll be buying grenades for the rest of your career. Just sayin', I think magic has outstripped tech in SR4, and that was even before Street Magic came out. I hope Arsenal and the Cyberware book kind of set things back into balance, but I'm not holding my breath.

15BP? How so? Spells don't cost 15BP per spell. Unless you're counting the stats or skill, which really shouldn't count, unless you want to compare the cost of buying high agility/combat skills, which will be comparable.

Doh! What ShadowDragon said.

Ares alpha anyone? I'll have to check and see if it can be fitted with an airburst link

No denying that magic isn't perfect, but then again not many things are in life.

And I'm certain there's plenty of tools available to GMs to help tone down the effects of magic. Ultrasound goggles, pressure sensors, security mages or adepts, etc.

Plus if you throw up a smoke grenade enemy magic will have a hard time, whilst you can still shoot or throw/launch grenades through. Might get penalties, but penalties are better than not being able to do it at all.

I still think the magic is a better investment. Awakened characters have superior upgrade options, while anyone using cyberware has severe limits on how much they can upgrade. Not to mention, adding more cyberware makes it more difficult for that character to heal due to essence loss (to say nothing of the cyberzombie effect). And mages are the only character type who can easily start the game with four initiative passes.

Plus, grenades lose strength immediately as soon as you leave the point of impact. A manaball/powerball/ball lightning spell remains as potent as ever, regardless of distance.

The airburst link is a smartgun accessory that doesn't take a mount. So yep, give your alpha an upgrade.

Visibility modifiers apply to spellcasting, so if there's a smoke grenade in the area spellcasting will be at -4 dice. Unless you've got thermal smoke and the mage is using thermographic vision he won't be stopped from casting.

Walking around with sustained spells isn't as easy as it sounds. Wards, random astral entities, and patrolling spirits will take interest.

Also keep in mind that walking around with sustained spells leaves your astral signature behind for Force hours. Easy to follow such a person and do horrible things to them.