I need clarification on Indirect Combat Spells please. If you have too goons, say 2 meters apart, but one is hiding behind a crate (you can only see one), and you cast, for example, a fireball at the guy you can see; Does the blast of the fireball (say Magic 5 for a radius of 5 meters) affect the entire area, including the guy behind the crate, or does the fireball make an 'L' shaped area, with the area behind the crate safe?

It seems the way that I read the rules that the guy behind the crate is miraculously safe, but that just seems silly to me with an area-affect spell.

the person hiding would be affected. this was cleared up in the latest errata and the faq i think.

sadly, you cant target a point in space...

This was clarified in the FAQ. The guy behind the crate would be hit. It's one of the advantages of indirect combat spells.

AoE Indirect Combat spells work similar to grenades
Picture this:
Guy out in the open is the target.
Your mage and sam use Fireball and a explode on impact grenade, respectively.
Both attacks effect the area, regardless of any other targets in range. (I.E. The walls get scorched/dented up, same with the crate and anything else in the attack range.)

Now, factoring in the second target, hidden behind the crate, is now different than direct LOS anymore. You have to use the first target as the point of origin of the attack and see if there is any cover inbetween them. Odds are, there isnt anymore.

Course, you can take this with a grain of salt if you wish. I've been wrong before.

i think the crate goes as long as its a physical, not mana, spell.
its mostly based on the faq pointing to a grenade question when talking about trying to get a group of target within the radius.

now that im rereading the text, it sounds as if you can target space. what seems to be done is to counter a part of the grenade rules that can allow a person to turn a opposed test into a simple success test.

this because the grenade rules allow one to toss a grenade to a spot in space, and this will be a simple success test. but if one targets a person, it turns into a opposed test.

ugh, the more i think about it the more i want to just dump any opposed tests from grenade and indirect area spells given that it seems silly to attempt to "dodge" (basically what the opposed test is all about) an area effect of any kind.

You could always consider that the opposed test is to avoid being beaned in the head by the grenade

Meh, that'd just turn the game into grenade wars though. My current group of runners (which is really more of a strong arm merc outfit than anything) already uses more Grenades, Plant Spirit and Silence spells than is really practical as it is.

ever heard of scatter? it can have just that bad effect described.

now indirect area spells do not have scatter...

ok, after some sleeping on it my guess is that you designate a primary target inside the wanted area of effect. but thats not to say that the effect have to be centered on said target. its just that said target is the one doing the opposed test...

so say you have 3 people spaced so that if you land a genade or spell between them you will hit them all. you can select any one of them as being the primary target, but the point of scatter for the grenade will be the point you aimed at, not where the target is standing...