I built myself an ork bear shaman a while back and I'm quite fond of him. He's a really fun character to play. He's got a cool back story and a unique motivation. I got to have a lot of fun with him recently. I've occasionally brought up the fact that he's not very wel min/maxed: he's got a spread of skills that involve medicine and unarmed combat, and he's got decent physical stats with only high willpower, and average mental stats. This means that he's a decent magician, but the combat mages and specialists are usually better than him.

Last night it all payed off though. One thing that occurred to me recently is that with 8 dice to resist drain, you can generally rely on 2 hits on a drain test. In fact, you can buy 2 hits if the GM allows (although I feel it's cheap to buy hits on a drain test, so I always roll) - so I figured out for all my spells what force I can cast it at to get 2 drain. For Death Touch, that is 8. I guess the balancing factor of this low-drain combat spell is that a magician has to get in melee to cast it. For most mages, this is dangerous, but my ork has 16 dice for soaking damage (6 body, 8 armor, +2 for the bear totem). My character went berserk from his own physical drain, and killed 4 guys with one hit a piece. I managed to get base damage of 10+ with each casting, and their meager 3 Willpower wasn't enough to lower it.

The GM even had the humanis thugs roll composure tests as they saw a frothing, raging ork grow 4" claws and rip their friends' heads of. It was cool

I blew a couple drain rolls though, and walked around with a -1 the rest of the game, bleeding from my fingernails and mouth.

Mostly I just wanted to share the story, but it also occurs to me the firepower my character is carrying. Does it seem balanced?

Dread Polack

that's awesome! I love shamans.

Whether or not it is balanced is really up for debate. Combat spells benefit immensely from increases in Force, so every restriction you take that allows you to jack up the force for little to no risk has a dramatic effect.

For a more extreme example, think of a touch range stun spell with a restricted target (human, or something). the drain on that is (F/2)-4, which means you can cast it at Force 13 and only resist 2 points of drain. With just 1 net hit, you're got a guaranteed KO plus overflow physical damage. That's a hell of a sleep spell.

Slightly less extreme is the same spell without the restricted target. You can cast that at up to Force 9 for only 2 drain, and with one net hit you've got a guaranteed KO on all but the most stubborn dwarves.

Oh - and for an anti-mage version, change the damage type to Indirect and the restriction to Awakened; this is basically Punch (Awakened). That gives you (F/2)-3, which means Force 9 for 2 points drain - only, it can't be completely resisted like a direct combat spell so as long as you touch your target, they have to mitigate 9 points of stun plus however many success you get on your spellcasting test. They get to add half their impact though

Talk about a Vulcan Neck Pinch!

I'm still wiffly (new word) on exactly how the touch spells in combat operate. Does the character make a touch only (+2 dice) melee attack and cast the spell as part of the same complex action? Can the character make a regular melee attack and cast death touch as part of the same action, causing regular melee damage and spell damage? Can the character make a melee touch attack for the bonus dice while using stun gloves and use death touch, all as part of the same complex action? Parts of this seem sane, while other parts seem...less so.

The character uses his complex action to touch and cast at the same time. As the character is concentrating on casting the spell, he is unable to perform any other attacks that would also only require a touch action.
This is mainly for balancing issues to stop a mage from doing the touch spell + Shock Gloves + Shock Frils combo and outright destroying anyone they come across.

Excellent. I'll say that it's an "almost touch" required instead of an actual touch then to avoid the complications of the stunning BS.

What's that elf shaman with a high agility and trained in carromaleg? You want to take the troll adept in hand to hand?

Ick.

"Hmm... Troll PhysAd you say? Force 10 stunbolt for 4P drain, please!"

You might also want to remember that humanis thugs are pretty weak opponents - against tougher opponents, you are less likely to get a one-shot knockdown (although you might, and there's nothing wrong with that, considering how many ways that characters can do that). So no, I wouldn't say it's unbalanced.