OK, this spell by the description given seems a bit odd to me. Maybe someone can offer advice on how it should be handled.

According to SR4 (with no errata posted for it), you gain armor points through hits. OK, that seems alright. However, the drain is pretty brutal at (F/2)+3. If the gain is only from hits and not Force + hits, why would any caster in their right mind cast it above force 1?

In the old version it was Force that determined the armor bonus with only 1 hit needed to get the spell off. This new working just doesn't seem right.

Anyone have any insight into this?

It's very hard to make a finely designed barrier with magic (not impossible, but it's expensive in power and finesse). Unlike a regular phys barrier, an armor spell will last even if penetrated, and protects you more by cushioning blows than outright stopping them (hence the armor effect rather than barrier rating).

Or so I would say, heh. It's hard because it's shaped like your body, moves with your body, and stays constantly even if penetrated.

You cast it higher than force 1 because in SR4, Force limits the number of hits (not even net hits, hits PERIOD) that you can get on a spellcasting test. So if you only want one point of armor, force 1 is fine. Otherwise, you'll want to cast it higher.

As to why the drain is so harsh? Hell, it probably should be harder. Any decent mage will cast that at about force 3 or so without taking any real drain. And since it stacks just nicely with worn armor, it gives mages a nice durability advantage. While the spell text doesn't suggest this, it seems logical that magical armor would give you full protection (instead of the usual half impact) from indirect combat spells with elemental effects like lightning bolt. So it all kind of evens out.

Edit:Too slow.

There's also a dodge spell in SM. Mages can be happy, with prep....

John, your response clarifies it perfectly! I forgot about the force and hits ceiling.

Thanks all for the fast response, I'll have to visit these forums more often =)

A wise old DM once said to me "when you're playing a mage, always do defensive spells first. Otherwise you're dead." Now to be fair, he was talking about D&D. But honestly, when one of the rules of the game is "geek the mage first" I think the old adage is pretty apt.

Plan on people shooting at you. If that planning means wearing armor, having an armor spell and a defelct spell and an increase attribute:reflex spell in effect, spirits to guard you, along with a healthy dose of paranoia up to and including "is that adept on my team really a bug?", then I'd say you're doing it about right.

Hopefully you've had the foresight to get a sustaining focus or three so that you can actually fight back after you've defended your self. And sometimes the best defense is a good offense. But if you don't have your spell shit together when you're expecting a fight, hell you deserve to die. A mundane can't throw an armor spell on top of their armored jacket. But you can be damn sure the street sam would if he could. So yeah, be prepared, and don't whine about drain. It's better than being perforated.

yes. Not so much 'control' as make it harder. Don't have the exact rules in front of me, but IIRC, they have to negate your net successes, and they resist drain equal to the force of the spell I believe.

You can also make it self-only for DV/2-1. THAT is economical; normally, you can cast it on anyone in LOS.

I've found it's pretty swell to armor up the street sam and just stand around the corner and wait thank you very much. Now that's eco... no.... wait... lazy!

Make it touch for force/2 + 1. That's a fine spell right there.

Deflection is better if you don't expect someone to walk up and punch/cut you.

Hey, all real armor has a bullseye painted on it. Shows you're not afraid.

It's only useful in a firefight that's already started, really.

Well, it should be far from impossible to create a variant Armor spell that doesn't glow at all, with spell design rules.

You can; I don't have the book in front of me, but touch is 2 less drain than LOS, and as it is, Armor is LOS.

Well, you have to assume someone has researched and published or otherwise made available to you an Armor spell that is self only. Whether that's a reasonable assumption or only "standard" spell versions are readily available is up to your GM. He may make you research your own version to get that drain reduction, or find and roleplay/shadowrun the aquisition of an unusual form of Armor (or whatever).

Personally, I think this is an obvious enough drain savings on a useful and important enough spell that someone has already done it, and it's out there on the market.

Ok, so you guys are just comparing the relative difference in the spell design section of Street Magic, correct? When I read emo's comments, I thought there was something saying that one could just change an existing spell from LOS to Touch and receive a DV savings...

I would agree, that with the savings in DV, it would make sense someone would have already created a touch version of the Armor spell...

Right, he's redesigning the spell with a new formula for lower drain; the only way you can limit a normal spell for drain is through fetishes.

Emo rarely follows the rules as they are written, he locates any possible varaint, misunderstanding or hole and abuses - sometimes beyond credibility. So it's always good to check up with your GM whether they'll allow custom spells or whether they'll follow what's in the published grimoire.

of course, in this particular case, emo is using the rules exactly as written in street magic, as far as i can tell, and i wouldn't personally consider this especially broken; it's not like self-only or even touch is not a limitation to it's effectiveness (especially with how noticeable the armor is, it's gonna come up where you'd like to put armor on someone far away... maybe you're extracting someone, maybe your sneaky samurai get's noticed across the courtyard, who knows. but ultimately, you will probably want a ranged version at some point (though not necessarily enough to pay karma for each variant of the spell).

as someone else has phrased it, "taste the indecision? that's balance, right there."

Don't worry, that's just Dranem lashing out at anything emo does. It's been a while, and I think he might have been suffering withdrawal pains, or even DTs.

I would think that Touch would quickly become the default version of Armor.

I think the majority of the time, you're putting armor on yourself, or on a teammate nearby. Sometimes you will want a ranged version, but I see that as the exception, more than anything....