How many spells can a sustaining Focus sustain? I know the force of the spell is limited by the rating. But how many Force 3 spells, for example, can a Sustaining Focii (Force 3) sustain?

Also,

What's the point of the limitation on sustaining Focii? It states a spell sustained through a sustaining focii can not have more force than the focii rating...

So?

You roll Magic + Spellcasting to cast a spell - Force almost never comes into play unless you're deciding damage or very few force related spells...

Right? I hope I'm wrong.

Does it basically limit your successes/hits to the rating of the Focii?

Sam W.

A sustaining focus can only sustain one spell, of its type.

The force of the spell both limits the number of successes you can achieve, and comes into play if someone attacks your focus, or you pass through a ward, or they do some fancy coutnerspelling mumbo jumbo.

Right. Note that he biggest Sustaining Focus you can start play with is Force 3, and the Object Resistance of a drone is 4. That means that an imroved invisibility you cast on yourself and hope to sustain with the focus you began play with won't keep you off the scanners of a steel lynx. No matter how well you roll, only 3 hits count, and that's less than the R of the drone so it sees you.

That Force cap on sustaining foci is a big deal. It's not just for limitting staring characters from sustaining 4 initiative passes on the Increase Reflexes spell or to limit your dicepool modifier from Combat Senses to +3.

-Frank

Frank,

I am not sure I agree with your statement about needed to beat the Object Resistance table for Improved Invisibility to work.

I interpret the OR table to be used when trying to affect the obejct directly, with something like a combat spell or manipulation spell.

Improved Invisibility adds penalties to the perception test, by making it harder to see you, by "bending" light around you.

I agree with this, but apparently we're wrong. It came up a few weeks back. I don't recall if it was officially official, but enough people who'd worked on the game said it works the way Frank says to convince me.

It's lousy metaphysics, but the entire idea of illusion spells in every magic system known to man has always suffered from lousy metaphysics. At least it had the benefit of being simple, which makes it consistent with the rest of SR4.

Speaking of improved invisibility...

How in the world do you detect someone who is hitting you with direct-damage spells that is using improved inivis?

If they don't out-do it with counterspelling + willpower - are they scroooood?

Even if you barely somehow manage to "guess" where the person is - you would still get a -6 penalty to your dice pool to hit him wouldn't you?

Can assensing detect invisible people?

Is there a Sense[Ultrasound] that would let you target invisible people?

Sam W.

Thanks .. and:

Direct damage spells - you still check how much damage is resisted - after the spellcasting-resist check, with just body correct?

Example, Manabolt or Powerbolt. Both are first resisted via Willpower/Body + Counterspelling - and assuming there is at least 1 net hit - calculate Damage Value then roll Body to see how much is resisted?

Also - after you do a Logic+willpower roll to resist drain as a hermetic you have lets assume, 4 boxes of drain to apply (stun or physical, doesn't matter) - you can resist that with Body correct? Like normal direct damage?

Sam W.

Beat you!

That's because I edited my first version, which originally began with...no no no!

I see you fit in here just fine.

I still have trouble grasping line-of-sight vs. line-of-effect--mostly when glass is involved, and especially in dealing with vehicles.

Basically, if you can see something, you can (attempt to) affect it with Magic. The exception to this is with Indirect Damage Spells (the old Elemental Manipulations now moved to Combat), the effects of which actually travel from the caster towards the target in the real world, therefore impacting with a glass barrier that would be in the way.

So if I drop a powerball on a car when I can see the occupants inside, the car and the occupants are all attacked?

But if the windows are too tinted, then the powerball (or a fireball) attacks the car, and only does incidental damage to the occupants (which may still geek them in the end)?

well, assuming by 'incidental damage' you mean 'damage caused by the car crashing due to massive damage' then yes.

there is pretty much 0 chance of a powerball affecting the people inside the vehicle, directly (and just so you know, windows that are tinted enough to protect you from mages are standard in the 6th world).

the fireball really *should* be able to damage the people inside provided it is able to blast through the windows' barrier rating. they kinda neglected to specify that in SR4, but that's how it worked in previous editions, and seems to be the general consensus of how it is supposed to work in this one (as far as the rules go, there is one place where it says indirect spells work 'like ranged weapons' or something to that effect, but there is nowhere that it says you don't need line of sight to hit something with them specifically)

I don't have the 1st or 2nd edition books anymore. I have a memory or a spell and I don't know if it was a misinterpretatrion or a vague description but I remember a version of mana barrier that wouldn't allow living things to cross it. Objects could but people could'nt.
Does anyone else remember this?
I remember the thought of casting it across a road and watching the people spat against it inside their cars! Seems like our GM house ruled it away.

I remember that mana barrier spell
It would work on people on bikes, but not on people in cars, IIRC.

As a note,

One thing I will allow is a Sustaining Foci to sustain more than One spell it can sustain up to its 'rating' in Force.

So a Force 5 sustain foci.

Could sustain one force 5 spell, five force 1 spells, one force 3 and one force 2, etc.


Now the 'draw back' is the 'Foci' draws all the attention of a big bad force 5 foci and is lit up like the Vegas strip... however, each 'spell' is only as stong as its force rating so very likely to 'break' if counterspelled, force through a ward, etc).

To me this give a little more 'worth' to spending the money/karma on getting a big boy by giving flexibility.

May not be 'RAW" but has worked well for me so far.

I like that idea laughingowl

I was thinking of limiting foci ratings to your magic rating or for weapon foci half your magic rating. On the other hand I was thinking about making it easier to make low level foci (maybe 1 -3) but it gets into normal costs higher up.

I always twitch when I thinking about a poor tribal shaman, the character type that traditionally used alot of foci and fetishes, having to fork all that nuyen for a focus. Especially sense it was probably a rock spearwith an eagle feather on the end.

I may be mis-interpreting this, but I was under the impression that indirect spells, you only need to see the point that you were casting the spell, and from there it spread out, affecting anything in the area of effect, even if the caster can't see it.

To me, that explained the higher drain cost, and the secondary effects (thinking of Napalm).

the problem with that, mistwalker, is that the SR4 rules clearly states that one needs LOS, and makes no exception for area effect elemental spells.

no more lobbing fireballs just beyond the open door to fry any guards in hiding. that is until we get an errata or something that inserts said exception.

But, IIRC, they also say that secondary effects happen, like things catching on fire from Napalm or such.

Are you telling me that if I have something blocking line of sight in a narrow area, like say a stop sign, that nothing behind the sign would catch fire?

If you need LOS, then what is reason indirect spells have such higher drain?

That's how the rules are written, if one applies them verbatim (which one should, of course). Doesn't make much sense with Mistwalkers example, for example. I think most people use indirect combat spells like they used to be (actually the first thing I houseruled in SR4), that they can hit targets out of LOS.

Ah, but by using it has always been that way, you should also use it for no LOS needed for indirect spells.

After all, they are not mana spells that need to be "connected" to the target's mana

did a re-read of both entrys on area effect that was listed in the index.

it all hinges on the "valid target" definition, or so it seems.
sadly all spells are mainly described as singel target spells with the area one as just a variant with diffrent drain.

Yeah, I re-read it and can't find anything specific either. Chalk up another house rule till this is errata'd.

The problem is that SM seems to go out of its way to answer some of the threads from this spring, and explicitly states that AE spells only hit all targets within LOS, with the word target being defined loosely enough that "hiding behind my armor" doesn't work.

If they went to all that trouble, and didn't make the obvious exception for elemental spells...

Personally, I think elemental AEs *should* use LOS from point-of-impact (which itself would be LOS to caster). That offsets the higher drain and the dodge chance, and makes elemental AEs useful in specific situations, whereas they otherwise are of little use.

In comparison, the fragball spell can do up to 12P damage twice per IP to targets not in caster LOS with no drain and no Awakened qualities.

The only downside is that I have to choose how many fragballs I want to be able to cast, and then acquire those annoying material components. It's like working with D&D magic =(

Meh, fragballs are relatively cheap, all things considered. Just don't get caught with one.

Also near as I can tell at no point does Invisibility EVER defeat sound. If you hear where he is unload full auto into that area.

True enough. Invis+Silence=Tasty.

One other reason to use Indirect Combat spells:

Object resistance. That threshold of 4 is a pain to beat with powerbolt, but the indirect combat spell does normal, physical damage instead of magic damage and so ignores the object resistance.

Fragballs?

Thrown Frag grenades. You know, "Fireball: spell component, one incindiary grenade."