My grasp of magic is growing but I'm still having troubles providing useful suggestions to my neophyte magic PC's.

So I ask DS, what spells are seeing the most use at your tables? And if you only had 5 spells what would they be?

Improved Invis
Levitate
Heal
Stunbolt
Mana Static

All top notch spells to be sure useful in gobs of situations. Improved invis and Levitate and can often be faked with spirit powers. Admitted not as well.

Whipstich nailed it though. A mage should focus almost if not exclusively on that do things only magic can. That would be things like Mind probe, mana static, heal, etc. Also when it comes to spell selection in general also take a close look at all the default and optional powers of your spirits. While there is a lot of over lap on those 10 lists your spirits give you a lot of tricks ... that don't cost 5 karma each. If you have have a small team with lots of infiltration, then conceal and an Illusion spell might be a more powerful combo point for point, even though improved invis is awesome.

Hmm... good to know. Some maybe 5 might have been too short of list, got any other spells you'd all like to toss on there?

For me the best 5 would be

mana static
trid phantasm
control thoughts
shapechange
mindprobe (not as good as before it was always detected, analyze truth can be better because of this but you have to know what and how to ask)

mana or stunbolt are also very handy as well as the barriers.

Control Thoughts
Mind Probe
Levitate
Stunball
Improved Invisibility

if i was only taking 5, i might consider magic fingers over levitate. the degree of fine control could potentially be worthwhile. i do admit though, it's a tough choice... heavy lifting, or fine manipulation?

You can't finger yourself (no pun, blabla). So it won't help you go over that fence.
On the other hand with magic finger, you can stole the key from the guard.

Despite the similarities, I don't think those two spells have similar uses...

Out of those two i'd pick magic fingers because you really can do many things you'd use levitate for with spirits imo.

like what?

it's reasonably likely to levitate a few hundred kilograms of stuff. good luck getting anywhere near that with spirits.

Mob Mind (Try this use: "You don't want to resist my friend's spells, he's gonna help you..." then cue a Mind Probe, Alter Memory, or a second mage to get off a (now unresisted) Mob Mind.)
Mind Probe (Interrogation with questions like, "Whats the one question you MOST wish I wouldn't ask?")
Alter Memory (EG: "I alter the security guards memory of my shooting him and change it to a memory of my saving his life from some OTHER dude shooting him...")
Mana Static (Dump it on enemy spirits so guns can rip them apart, Worsens Invisibility, Screws up illusions, all kinds of nifty uses)
Area Thought Recognition (Learn it once then use to detect any concept... for kicks try 'Imminent Violence to others', 'Detecting a spell cast by another', and 'Using counterspelling')


And for the record, although it isnt one of my top 5 'best' spells the Physical Camouflague spell is usually better than Improved Invis. Since Improved Invis is all or nothing and Physical Camo makes stealth much easier its all about reducing the enemy's ability to perceive you to a dice pool of zero via Physical Camo, a Chameleon Suit, visibility mods, flash paks, etc.)

Influence
Fashion
Stun Ball
Levitate
Heal

Hehe... fashion and Alter Memory, to favorites of mine.

I meant things like levitating people over a fence or a wide gap for example, where you might as well use gymnastics + movement power. As for lifting heavy stuff levitate works ofc but then the weight you can lift is pretty limited again and often technical equipment is required.

perhaps you hadn't noticed that levitate lets you fly. like a LTA vehicle, except faster generally speaking. movement does nothing to make you move farther on a jump, and if you can get over the obstacle with gymnastics then it isn't really worth using any sort of magic on in the first place.

do not underestimate the power of flight.

So, let's calculate some average result.
Magic 5, spellcasting 5, spell not overcasted.
DP of 10 -> 3... I'll be generous 4 success (with a maximum of 5 anyway).

4x5= 20 meters/turn
Slower than a running human, the same as a dwarf without sprinting.

Not that fast I guess.

Except movement could also be used in addition to that.

Not to mention levitate can be an offensive spell too. Either by forcing them into hazards of the environment, or by just picking them up and dropping them.

Indeed. I never denied the usefulness of Levitate.
Just that, as one of my player discovered the hard way, it will not move something very quickly...

I dunno, I'd say flying at 20m/3sec is pretty damn fast compared to the alternative..... not flying.

This is a useful thread, since I also have some problems with magic. Could someone post links to Doc's other threads please?

And on a pet peive, regarding flying in SR, and more specifically movement:

20 meters/ 3 seconds is 24 kilometers per hour, which is better then not flying, but in my opinion the whole movement system in SR is pretty messed up. The walking speed for a human is 12 kilometers per hour according to SR4. Now, I am not in good shape anymore, but I went for a 2 mile run today in it took 20 minuets. Thats just under 10 kilometers per hour for 20 minuets at a running speed, and I was pretty damn tired by the end of it. The average person walking at 12 kilometers per hour? Crazy. Likewise, apparently we all run, not sprint, but RUN at 30 kilometers per hour. Not sprinting, just running. Average Joe.
The fastest sprint ever measured (unreliably at that) was 12.1 m/s at its peak. Gold Metalists for the Olympics tend to hover around 10 or 11 meters per second. Considering the base movement for a human in Shadowrun (sustainable running, not sprinting) is 8 meters per second, I think we are FUBAR.

Mana Static - one shot nut punch to any magical threat, arguably the best spell in the game

Physical Mask - a top spell, in addition to making you look like someone you're not (a handy talnet) it can also make you look like your NOT carrying something. IE a LMG. Sammie's love it because you can hide potentially illegal cyber and their guns in one fell swoop.

Heal - Arguably the best spell in the game. Its counterpart, fix, deserves an honourable mention for being the same thing except for technology.

Turn to Goo - Target has to save or die, and useful for other things, like smuggling people in your suitcase across border crossings for example, or into buildings.

Trid phantasm - creates an arbitary illusion that fools sensors. Sweet.

Control thoughts - 18 seconds is a lloonnnggg time in shadowrun. (I know thats 6)

If I could only have 5 it would probably look something like that, though I'd consider finding room for stunball.

There is absolutely no competition on the worthwhileness of Magic Fingers relative to Levitate. I dont care if you can tickle guards from across the room or even double it up as replacement for orgasm (hand job anyone?), Levitate is not just about lifting things up, it is about telekineticly moving them at will. Examples:

• Dude is trying to shoot you, levitate him into the ceiling above. 24km/h may not be much when your feet are hitting the pavement, but it is more than enough for your spinal column.
• Flying (most anonymous form of transportation, combine with Movement for best results)
• Stopping the runaway car. No fucking joke, requires a bit of overcasting, but can also move the car into a building, etc.

Yes, the movement rules in SR4 are dumb as fuck. Everyone moves at exactly the same rate, unless sprinting. You also dont even need to do math to realize that some of the figures are unrealistic. For this, I have done what I normally do: what would SR3 do?

I tied movement to Agility with a modifier based on race.

Walking Rate = Agility
Running Rate = Agility * Modifier

Dwarf = x3
Elf = x4
Human = x4
Ork = x4
Troll = x5
Ghoul = x5
Shapeshifter = x5
Faster animals = x6

With the 6 to 4 conversion, this works out nicely. Also, if it wasn't mentioned in SR4 already, Sprint is a complex action, and the max movement rate is divided by the number of initiative passes to determine movement/IP.

Also, here are the 5 spells I would learn if I were a mage (IRL):

Crank
Nutrition
Fashion
Physical Mask
Purify

And someone told me you could not make superheroes in SR *giggling like a little girl while making dramatic gestures and flingin' cars into skyscrapers*

Also remember that the altitude limit on levitate is up to the edge of the manasphere (~100 km?). So your mage can go and get his astronauts wings one weekend.

There's no limit for a high level mage who has mastered Filtering!

Filtering does not work on mana voids.

So, did they significantly change the Levitate Spell in SR4? It used to be that there was an upper limit to the distance that you could move an object. something like Magic rating * 5 meters or something similar. Seems to me that it was about 40 meters for some reason. Did they remove that limitation in SR4?

I remember no such limitation in SR3 either. Perhaps you're thinking of the weight limits on something like fling?

If I remember the SR2 limit right, that was max movement per combat turn, as normal movement occurred on a per action, rather than by per turn, basis.

There was no limit on SR3 and I've always interpreted the "distance" to mean the distance a object could be moved per action phase.

SR1 had a limit of max height = magic attribute, with no limitation on total distance, just a speed limit depending on the force of the spell.

Yeah, all it actually says in SR2 is that the max distance can be moved in one turn. It is pretty vague on whether you can do it again the next one or not.

Space used to be a mana warp. Did they change this in SR4?


SR4 limit is 250kg per hit. So to lift a car light car (jackrabbit) you must achieve 4 hits (1000kg), Trucks and the like are very hard to lift, as they require around Force 8-10 (with 8-10 hits as well). Still, much easier than SR3.

Thank you all so much for your responses, mana static truly is an awful and awesome spell (particularly when the PC mage didn't grasp that a sudden 4 point localized spike in background count is not a normal occurance).

Yes, background count can now be negative due to lack of mana (mana ebbs & voids) and positive due to too much or twisted mana (domains & mana warps). You always take the absolute value as a penalty, no matter if the Background is positive or negative. Domains are the only areas of background that can be aspected, giving a bonus.

The three spells I would never go without as a mage (unless building around a specific concept) would be:
Manabolt
Heal
Mana Static

I would need to review the spell lists to find another 2, although Increase Reflexes, Armor, Levitate, & Physical Barrier are high on the list.

If Armour were in the running I would argue that Deflection is a much better spell...

I haven't looked into magic much in 4th, is Redirect still on the spell list? That's my favorite spell from 2nd edition.

Wreck gun
heal
mind probe
mind control
stunball

while you were discussing the physical function(sick) of the levitation-spell . . moving/accellerating things is more or less ruled, but what about catching/stopping/decellerating things?
if i wanna go up that building, it takies that much time, that many successes etc. et cetera, drekcetera . .
but if i were to jump down from a building(happens often enough, ironically), how mcuh time would it take for me to stop my fall via the levitation spell?
or if somebody else is jumping/"falling" down and i wanna catch that certain somebody for whatever reason so he does not go splat?

Nice thinking Stahlseele, I would treat it as a matter of weight. Just up the threshold depending on their current velocity.

ugh, physics again . .
first: me as a player, i never did well in physics . .
second: me as a character utilizing magic? "Physics? i fart in it's general direction! i can lift Things with my Mind! Suck that Physics!"
but yeah, you're probably right . . at least up the target number as if Target were moving fast *g*

De accelerating is just applying force to oppose the current movement. I'd say apply the movement the levitate spell could move them as slowing them by that much.

Say a person jumps off a 30 story building, (I dont have books, so I'm pulling values out of the air) and they're falling at 50m/sec. If you can levitate at 20m/sec, it would take 2.5 seconds to stop them.

Now, what I'm about to propose doesn't really fit in with Newtonian physics of forces and acceleration and mass and such, but this is magic, right, with no actual numbers except a top speed and max load, so...

How about it can only reduce the speed of a moving body by 20m/rnd (the max speed at which it can move a body). Any further deceleration must come from another source...

Example. Mage Levitates a car that's rolling at 80m/rnd. They can also reduce its speed to 60m/rnd (or increase it to 100m/rnd if you're feeling kind), but that's it. It can't brake or accelerate, because its wheels aren't touching the ground, but air resistance will slow it (a bit) and hitting obstacles will too.

Elsewise you have to do some sums about force needed to raise things against 1g and accelerate them, and remove the top speed limitation, which necessitates doing fag-packet calculations of energy and aerodynamics...

i like the part about being able to slow a fall down by the same speed one would be able to lift something . . so the 20m/combat turn sounds good right now . .
hell if i can actually find those frigging falling rules right now when i would need them <.< . .

It's magic.. never let magic and physics mix

*snickers*
nice typo there ^^
but yeah, my sentiments exactly ^^

I generally operates off of a "Levitate works by shunting mass and applying Force more in line with most other spells" approach, seriously, if you tried to catch someone jumping off a building by opposing their force unless you stopped them really slowly damage would need to be applied. So, the way I work it is Force can reduce a targets effective mass by up to 250kg per hit. Shunting that mass to a spell controlled pocket of the astral plane or... something. My reasoning for why people in levitate don't get thrown around by breezes or pushed 50 m through the air by a bullet is that as soon as the other force/object enters the spells space it's mass is reduced by the same percentage. So, someone jumps off a building, I would probably make the mage spend an IP stabilizing their movement, depends on how fast they are going when he catches them, but otherwise no real Physics needed. Then again I think most of my players would revolt if I made them do Physics at the gaming table. Sadly enough my gaming table consists of me(psych major and pre-med), a art major, an art major drop-out, another college drop-out(don't know what he went for he bounced around through a lot of classes), and an English major when he makes the drive into town. We used to have another English Major and Theater Major, but they live in New York City, now. Every sciency gamer I've met in this town is one of those power gamers who must have the bestest character ever and completely dominate the game or they get pissed off and whine and sulk in the corner... so none of them at my table thank you.

Anyway, this works for us and it doesn't hurt my mind to contemplate. Also, I'm lazy and don't have to do relatively time consuming and annoying physics and damage calculations.

Chris

EDIT: Oh, and on topic
1. Mana Static- Well, duh
2. Increase Reflexes(If I can't fit Synaptic Boosters in) - More spells, more shooting, more everything IPs are important.
3. Levitate - Really Utility Heavy Spell.
4. Physical Mask or Fashion or Trid Phantasm - Depends on game type, but being able to conceal yourself and make it look like you didn't just get shot or beat someone to death is important.
5. Either Orgasm/Mass Agony or Influence, or Stunball/Manaball/Lightning Ball - Depends on other members of the party and the character concept, Influence goes with Tris Phantasm because it is almost required to be able to effect more than one person at once.

hoo boy, i could tell you stories . .
an electrician, a computer/networking/internet/telecommunications guy, an medic and a professional military guy walk into a bar . . yeah, that's us . .