Hello all. I'm new to the forum and couldn't find the answer to my question, please feel free to point me in the direction if this has been covered.

After today's session my fellow players and I were discussing attack strategies for our next run when magic was brought up. We tend not to use magic aside from Adept gun-fu, so our collective limited knowledge came into play when one of the guys said something along the lines of "I'll stunball the guards a few times." and another player saying he didn't think Mana spells affected people on the physical plane.

This broke down to the magician quoting from page 195, SR4 under the spell type description saying mana spells are resisted by the willpower of a living or magical being. He then gave the example of I can zap you with a manabolt, but not your car. Player two brought up page 171, SR4 where it said Mana can only affect living things or entities composed of mana, such as spirits or foci. Then player two said from the wording that to him the the living thing/entity that it gave an example of was a spirit, not person. A lot of back and forth arguing both points issued forth, but at the end of the day we didn't resolve anything and the storyteller had gone home so we couldn't get his ruling on the matter.

I can see both points, but I think for them it's how "living things or entities composed of mana" is grouped. Some argued the wording to basically be living thing/entity composed of mana, ex. spirit. The other group saying "living thing" is separate from "entity composed of mana" ex. squirrel and a spirit.

Some help before it gets down to Predators at dawn would be greatly appreciated.

Generally, it is accepted that mana spells are effective against living things like people and things created from mana like spirits. If it "lives", you can mana/stun bolt/ball it.

That's where my personal beliefs fall, but I've never played a mage. The magic system as a whole has been skimmed over throughout most of the editions as it had little baring on most of my running life.

Mana spells can affect only living targets (including humans), or objects made of mana, such as spells, or foci (but not a foci's physical form).

Physical spells can affect anything with a physical form (including humans & cars), but cannot affect anything constructed from mana unless it creates a physical form (it can affect Physical Barrier, but not Mana Barrier, or most other spells; it can affect the physical form of a foci, but not the enchantment that makes it a foci).

Spells cast on the astral can only affect other astral begins, such as dual-natured creatures, precieving characters, projecting magicians, or non-materialized spirits. They cannot affect anything on the physical plane, including most metahumans & objects.

Spells cast on the physical cannot affect anything in the astral, such as non-manifested spirits & projecting magicians (note dual-natured & precieving characters are both physical & astral, and so can be affected by either).

Materialized spirits are dual natured so they can be hit from the astral.