I guess that depends on what you see as being "balanced" ...

But still lacking the +6 on reaction that Wired Reflexes 3 will give you. You'll need a second spell

And still wouldn't even out that +6 on reaction ...

That's the difference between Health and Combat spells I guess
Different spell categories for different purposes ... Health spells do give more options on fine control, but they're pain when being used in a harmful way ... Potentially because they're going against their own virtue, because somehow I do associate good things with the word "health" ...

Not really ...

I have no need for that ...

They use the different TNs because that is how Health spells work - Health spells that have a beneficial affect on a target's Attribute use the Attribute as a Target Number, while for spells that affect an Attribute adversely, the Target Number is 10 minus the target's Essense.

Decrease Reflexes is, in my opinion, the absolute worst spell that you could cast at someone with Wired Reflexes: 3. The Target Number is 10 minus Essense, so you are looking at a Target Number of 9. The target resists with Reaction - which is raised by +6 from the Wired Reflexes: 3, meaning someone with Quickness and Intelligence of 1 would still roll 7 dice to resist the spell - more likely they will be rolling 11 or 12 dice. And you would need 6 net successes to decrease the target's initiative by all three dice (but it doesn't affect Reaction, so the target will still have an 11 or 12 initiative). And you then take 6D Drain - if you cast it at Force: 1. But since it is a resisted spell, where your Target Number is very high and the target has a lot of dice to resist it with, you would have to cast it at Force: 6 to have even a remote chance of partial success - and Force: 6 raises the Drain to 9D.

I agree with Sphynx that adverse Health spells should be tougher to successfully cast and have a higher Drain. Combat spells are simply pumping destructive energy into a target, while Health spells are attempting to alter metabolic processes in complex ways.

The reason that the Drain Code is higher than its beneficial counterpart, is that it gets +1 Power for the Physical Spell modifier, and +1 Drain Level for the Harmful modifier. It's still not "balanced" in the sense of being a plausible spell to cast, but I actually don't have a problem with having a few less-than-effective spells out there - some spells should be less effective than others; it allows more leeway in having some mages showing better tactical sense than others.

Ack! I was calculating 10-Essence all wrong (I had confused it with 10-Essence Loss for some bizarre reason). <smacks forehead> I knew I never should have fallen asleep so often in math class.

That does make it a pretty useless spell all around since it's so easily thwarted by anyone worth casting it on. I can't think of any really useful opportunities for where it would come in handy except against a fellow magician using Increased Reflexes. And even then, why bother wasting Karma learning this spell instead of just trying to dispel the effect?

Also, why is it using the same Target as a Heal or Treat spell? The logic stated here by a few people is that 10-Essence was selected because Decrease Reflexes is a harmful and resisted spell -- yet Heal and Treat certainly aren't.

Anything that can possibly not go into manipulation should go into whatever other category it can go into.

Any spell can be argued to be some type of manipulation spell, so the bias must go the other way.

Woah, I just tried this out (except my girlfriend was sleeping) - you're totally wrong.

You were right about hitting myself - I didn't realise it would be that easy! But, I smacked my girlfriend about 4-6 times before she even got her arms up to block. And she's a really good martial artist!

I suddenly don't think melee attacks should be resisted in combat ...