This has come up now a few times in a game I'm running, and I wanted to know what other people's take on this spell / ruling is.
One of my players has the spell Mana Static. He regularly uses this spell to throw up a static at 1 less than his Magic rating, and then drops it the next round. During the 1 round of rating 4 background count all spirits of force 4 or less immediately go pop, making it a ridiculously effective AoE spirit killer. He doesn't use spirits himself, so he's happy to just hose everything around himself any time someone starts using spirits. Even if they aren't force 4 or less, they still get ganked, because they are now force 1 or 2.

As I understand the rules on permanent spells, that means they go in to effect the moment you cast it, but the effects revert if you stop sustaining the spell before it has attained permanence. Therefore when he stops sustaining the spell the effects immediately dissapate. The spirits, however, have already been disrupted, so they can't come back.


Can someone please tell me if I've got this wrong, or if Mana Static really is just that broken.
Yes, I'm aware that the Drain is brutal, but for a spell that can basically one shot a lot of encounters, it's so worth it.
(Note; Also, I'm not asking for house rules, because I can easily make those up myself. I just don't like to house rule stuff unless I'm sure the original rules don't work).

that sounds about right. note that any spells he himself may be sustaining are subject to that effect, and that further the spirits would have to all be close enough and on the appropriate plane for that to be a problem.

otherwise, yes. mana static really does do horrible things to spirits.

it's a great spell with a great use vs a particularly powerful threat.

But yes it really is that good, and is in contention for 'best spell in the game' along with heal and a few other bits and pieces.

My spellslinging characters tend to use Slaughter Spirit for this type of 'spiritual house cleaning'. Just as effective, with a lower Drain Code.

I can never justify taking non multi-purpose spells because I tend to max out my allocation. Horses for courses I guess.

Normally I feel the same way, but I make an exception for Slaughter Spirit. It is just too damn useful for taking out Spirit packs without harming or even inconveniencing the rest of the party.

you don't have to specify spirit type? thats useful.

Nope.

Same plane? Hadn't considered that.
Surely background count affects both the physical and astral plane at the same time?

Yes I can see why you'd take it then... it does kinda do the job of banish, but only cooler

Also, Fortune, re: Slaughter Spirits, it's cool and all, but not the instant death effect that Mana Static is. Against Slaughter Spirits each of the spirits gets a resistance roll using Willpower + Counterspelling (which some spirits have naturally, and others may get from their summoner), and then they get to soak against the damage. It hurts, but it's not an automatic kill against anything of low enough force.

Also, an expansion on my original query... what happens when someone casts Mana Static at a higher force than their own Magic? As far as I can tell, the spell goes off, spirits all go pop, his magic drops to 0, the spell fails, his magic goes straight back to it's full value, then... ummm... PROFIT!
Basically this would seem to remove the need to even stop sustaining the spell, since it does it's work and then kills itself, and it lets you instakill Force 10 spirits (assuming soft-capped starting mage) if you're willing to take the drain. Those same force 10 spirits would be rolling anything from 10 to 20 dice to simply swat a Slaughter spell, depending on who's providing them Counterspelling, if any. Still, 10, with Edge, is plenty.

Force 10 spirit is a party killer. Sure, the mage collapses from the drain, but he just one-shotted a party killer as a starting character, with absolutely no way for it to resist the effect.

I'm pretty sure you actually need to roll the required number of successes too, don't you?

You're a sick man... uhh dragon? and I like it.

Direct Combat Spells do not allow a Damage Resistance test after the initial Spell Resistance.

Mana Static is potentially the most powerful spell in the game, but due to it's high drain value, and limited use, that does not mean it is overpowered. It's limitations, in addition to only affecting magical objects/creatures, include it hindering the caster, & any other awakened character in the group.

And finally, if your starting mage can reliably obtain the 10 hits required to disrupt such a high-force spirit, one of two things is happening: said player is cheating, or your game is so high powered that it should not matter. Mana Static creates background equal to Spellcasting Hits, not Force.

As for Mana Static vs. Slaughter Spirit - I can multi-cast two or three Slaughter Spirit's in a single turn, for overall less drain than a single Static, and kill off low-force spirits just as well - without the hassle of hampering/damaging your self or party.

No soak afterward! It's a limited Manaball, and as such there is only the one resistance test (Willpower + Counterspelling if available).

Another one of the benefits of Slaughter Spirit is its amenity to multi-casting. Overlapping two lower Force spells has proved very useful, without causing much in the way of Drain, at least in my experience.

Beat you, Fortune

Muahahaha.

But you won't be nearly as effective against that force 8 spirit with counter spelling.

Excellent point. I'd forgotten that part. Still, with a decent edge pool it's theoretically doable... not nearly as much of a "One shot kill" though, since you're relying on a good roll. On the other other hand it definitely retains it's facility as an AoE spirit mob killer.



Another good point in favour of Slaughter. I'd not considered that.



This I have to contend. Three Slaughters gives all of the spells +2 DV, meaning you're soaking F/2+3 x 3, versus F/2+4 once, and you have to split your Spellcasting dicepool between 3 different spells, meaning your net hits are going to suck. Since net hits are all that matter for resistance, the spirits are likely going to ignore all three effects, and take no damage.

On the other hand, the hits rather than force thing means that an average starting mage is unlikely to muster the hits needed to take out force 5+ spirits, which does reign in the spell a little. It's the instant death against force 4 or less that annoys me.


Another point I'd like to bring up again, as it got missed earlier: Does plane matter? Since background count affects both the astral and material planes, surely it doesn't matter whether you cast the Mana Static in one or the other, you'll still disrupt any spirits, and really piss off any mages lurking in astral.

Yeah yeah.

But methinks you snuck in and added that last bit about multi-casting when I turned my back.


Force 8 Spirits don't grow on trees. Even rarer are Force 8 Spirits with Magical Guard.

But they can still be brought down through judicious use of spells. You aren't going to be getting 8 hits on your Spellcasting test in any kind of regularity (requires a Dice Pool of 24 and a minimum of a Force 8 spell) to bring down a Force 8 Spirit in one shot with Mana Static, and if you don't get it in one shot, it can move out of the AoE, via a number of means.

I admit, the multi-casting part was an edit - but it was before I refreshed the page and saw your post below mine. So it still counts

What you are not seeing is you can cast 3 Force 5 Slaughter Spirit Spells, each with a modified DV of 5 (for which I can use my full Pool to resist each time), versus 1 Force 8 Mana Static (the minimum needed for the Spirit level being bandied about) with a DV of 8.

I would personally just go for only two Slaughter Spirit spells, at either Force 5 or Force 7, but three works if you can pump your Drain Resistance Pool.

Splitting the Dice Pool is not as crippling as you might think. You only split the base (Attribute + Skill) Pool, and then add any and all modifiers to each new Pool as applicable. It isn't hard to stack on positive modifiers to one specific category of spells if you really try.

Mana Static does not need to be cast on the same plane as the targets, because it doesn't actually target the targets. It targets the area, and then the background count incidentally kills spirits. That makes it the best spell.

-Frank

I´d cast Slaughter Spirit at Force 11 before I´d cast Mana Static 8. Larger AoE, still lower drain, a couple of net hits is enough for anything. Mana Static is great, but less so for straight-out killing spirits. Shutting them down once they enter a certain room while killing the small ones is more like it.

Mana Static isn't a DV. It creates background count, which reduces a Spirit's Force directly. The Force 8 spirit becomes a Force 0 spirit, and pops instantly (double check the rules in Street Magic, this is how background count works for spirits, whether they are in physical or astral, as Frank just confirmed).
Yes, getting enough hits is the tricky part there, but I'd still argue that against lower level spirits (around Force 4) mana static is just too good a house cleaner too pass up. A Force 4 Spirit still has a chance of resisting a Force 4 Slaughter, whereas it can't do anything against Mana Static, and as has been previously mentioned, Mana Static has the advantage of not wasting a slot on a spell that isn't general purpose.

Slaughter is way cooler, but I'm playing devil's advocate here and making the case for Mana Static being rather overpowered.

If I recall Mana Static is not a permanent spell. It disappates 1 force level/hour.
It is sustainable but I do not know if you can quicken it with Karma. This has been discussed before in other threads. I do not remember if a consensus was ever found.

in this particular instance, DV was meant to mean drain value i think.

but do not forget the after effects!! If you cast mana static force 4 or 5, then your magic and casting ability for the remainder of the scene would be severely crippled. It takes hours to dissipate! You can cast slaughter spirit, wipe out the "air support" and then continue to happily blast the rest of the opposition.

But hey, I am actually playing devil's advocate, I do not really mind what spell is better. I like both.

Cheers,

Max

Manastatic at force 5 (because even numbers are for suckers) has a drain value of 6. You'll want 18 drain resistance dice to to go with that. For that you get to totally kill a force 4 or lesser spirit while merely inconveniencing everyone else. It's a strong play, but whipping up a force 4 spirit isn't exactly hard or time consuming either, so I fail to see what the hullabaloo is about.

Only if you sustain it for long enough for it to become "Permanent". Otherwise it drops when you want it to (or if you're in its area and it is of higher force than your Magic, it drops just after it's taken effect).

Not arguing either way, just keeping it from degenerating into the sort of guessing game that I sometimes confuse myself into.

1. All plans where you just need to have 8+ hits are bad. More so if you want those for casting AND drain.

2. Casting a even-lower-drain version of manaball is a no-brainer for those who can reliably come close to 8 hits on said tests.


Use Mana Static to create areas that are safe from astral attack. Even mundanes can handle force 3( spirits, and lower force ratings are taken care of automatically. If the spirit you want to fight is already there, use the more efficient mana-based direct combat spells.

(Did I mention that I love the sensing metamagic? Force 5 mana static = Initiate degree times 2.5 kilometers warning radius. Just saying.)

Yeah. DV is Drain Value. I fail to see how you could possibly be confused by this, especially since you yourself used the exact same terminology in regards to the Drain Value of the two spells in the very post I quoted.

I'm not sure that having one really great spell for nuking spirits and hampering magic makes it the 'best spell in the game'. Best spell for nuking dudes, yes. But the practical applications are very limited when compared with Trid Spec, Control Thoughts, Physical Mask, Influence... All kinds of stuff.

My mistake. I misread your post.

My argument was that whilst your three stacking Slaughters all deal damage, which the Spirits get to resist with the same pool each time, the Mana Static has no possible resistance at all. I missed that you were comparing cost rather than effect.

As for comparing cost, however, don't forget that each additional spell adds +1 to the Drain of all the spells you cast.

So you didn't actually read my post at all.

I did take that into account. I even gave you the exact figures for each spell. Let's recap ...

With three Slaughter Spirit spells at Force 5, with a base DV (Drain Value) of F/2+1, or 3, modified by +2 DV (Drain Value) for two additional spells means that each spell would have a DV (Drain Value) of 5. The Drain from each of these spells is resisted with the caster's full Pool.

One Mana Static cast at Force 8 has a DV (Drain Value) of F/2+4, or 8. This is a lot harder than the three previous Drain resistance tests above.

Also, with Mana Static, for it to be a one-shot kill for Force 8 Spirits (the Spirit level most commonly being used in this thread for whatever reason), you would need a Spellcasting Pool of 24 to do so with any regularity. You would then need a similarly-sized Drain Resistance Pool to consistently shrug off the Drain. And if you don't manage to pull of a one shot kill (8 successes), the Spirits can move out of the AoE without too much trouble and be right back to full strength again.

With the Slaughter Spirit spells, yes the Spirit gets to resist with Willpower (+ Magical Guard or Counterspelling, if either are available), but it has to do it multiple times, and it only takes one net success for each spell to do 6 boxes of damage. Fail by only a single success on only two of the spells and the Spirit is toast, and even if it doesn't the odds are good that the Spirit is damaged in the process. And this applies to every Spirit in the AoE.

See, I was assuming you'd be casting Mana Static at the same force as the Slaughters. It still takes two good hits with a slaughter to take down a Force 5 spirit, whereas Force 5 Mana-Static, if you get the hits on the test, will be an instant kill.

Also, I'm not sure about your math. Doesn't Drain round up like everything else?

Bare in mind, I want to be proven wrong here; I'm not looking to prove that I've found the ultimate cheat or something.
Unfortunately what I'm really looking for is some way of reigning in Mana-Static, which their doesn't seem to be without house ruling it. Yes, there are other spells which are more effective under specific circumstances, but that doesn't stop the Troll mage in my party from using Mana-Static to pretty much wipe out every magical encounter he comes up against (being a Troll, he's happy to drop his magic to 1, and then punch the enemy mage to death.

Drain is always rounded down.

Why should someone cast Slaughter Spirit at Force 5? If one could cast Mana static 5 instead (drain 6), at least force 11 would be acceptable. Which just happens to be the size of a force 5 spirits condition monitor. One net hit is pretty easy to achieve against 10 resisting dice.

We were discussing Force 8 Spirits (because that was the Spirit level others were using as an example), as I mentioned a couple of times.

Spellcasting hits (not net hits, but total hits) are limited to the Force of the spell. The most hits you could get with a Force 5 spell is 5, regardless of Dice Pool (unless you spend Edge in a specific manner).

A Force 5 Mana Static will merely piss of a Force 8 Spirit until he gets out of the AoE, which should take about one Initiative Pass or so, because the maximum Background Count generated would be 5. You need to have the Force at least equal to the number of hits you require.



Drain rounds down!

continuing with the example of force 8 spirits, lets say a group face a powerful mage who summons out a Force 8 spirit, mana static might do a great job, even if not achivieng 8 hits it will reduce the Mage capability hardly and the spirts inmunity to normal weapon will be reduced so the rest of the group can affect it easyly.

EDIT: it hasnt to be a powerful mage to summon a force 8 spirit.

But it is still a fixed location, which the mage and/or Spirit can move out of at will. Sure, the location can be moved before the permanent effect sets in (something I hope is fixed in future errata), but it still requires an action to do so, and doesn't prevent the targets from moving yet again out of the area of effect.

I always thought that to be the case. But what about this answer from the last Shadowrun chat transcript?

Link!

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...;may+chat\

Thank you! I apparently missed that answer.

Unless there's a cyber samuria with a gun nearby. Force 8 is hard to kill (I tried). Force 6 is relatively easy (with APDS and an assualt riffle).

True. I'm not at all discounting the usefulness of Mana Static. Merely pointing out that it does have drawbacks, and is not the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to spells in general, or even Spirit-killing in particular.

Now the trick is to get everyone in the AoE... indoors you are pretty likely to kill your own magic. If you don´t, the spirit will happily leave the AoE to attack you at full force. The maximum immediately effective force is (your magic -1), because you need to sustain the spell as long as the spirit is alive. While you do that, all awakened chars of the group are practically neutered. Easy to use is... different.

That said We are basically looking at 2 situations mopping up lots F4ish spirits, and pelting F8 spirits.

2 slaughter spirit spells have a very good chance of knocking out a ton of spirits, as does mana static. The difference is that Mana Static only relies on one roll. If you are wiping out gobs of spirits, there is a very good chance a couple spirits get lucky and win one or both resist rolls versus slaughter spirits. If you nail your spell casting roll with mana static though they are just dead - period. They can't get lucky versus background count. If you don't nail it you can spend one edge almost certainly nail the roll. So what you are looking here is a little more reliability for extra drain. I'd say that mana static is better because it has more uses and spirit killing and in the long run as a magician trends to infinity they can laugh at 6S drain. What clenches this for me though, is that after the fairly comparable first round, with mana static you get another 9 rounds where your can spend a complex action to move the effect of the sustained spell and nuke any spirits you see with a complex action(the same as spell casting) without further drain. Using movement to zoom around a big hive instagibing spirits with a drainless AoE effect for 9 rounds is crazy buff.

Now versus that force 8 spirit, I'd also take mana static. Honestly if your team isn't at least risking a 100% fatalities from an encounter with an F8 spirit, your team has enough magical ability to win any small group that doesn't have counter spelling. Maybe you can win them with mental manipulation, turn to goo, influence, illusions, or good old stun ball, some how you can... most of the time. This is why at my table (if no where else) you really aren't going to see F8 spirits without counter spelling. An optimized starting magician with a DP around 14 (soft caps and 2 +2s from somewhere) has no real hope hit the spirit twice with a split DP. Even without out counterspelling and no penalties the spirit has very comparable resist dice to the casting pool. And as I remember Fortune telling me in regards to splitting DP, penalties are more common than bonuses. If you edge on both tests and the spirit doesn't do the same (which they SM suggests they would to avoid disruption) a one shot is very possible, but far from guaranteed. Net results for slaughter spirit: Likely nothing, good luck/favorable conditions could easily lead to 50%-75% damage with -2 to -4 wound penalties, 1 shot possible but extremely unlikely even spending 2 edge.

Now let's look at mana static. A Spell casting DP of 14 will reliable yield 4+ hits without edge. That alone will automatically debuff an F8 spirit to the point that a sam or even a good drone acting autonomously can reliably drop it on one action phase. With edge you expect to get background count of around 7 14 -> 4 hits/10 misses rerolled to 7 hits. . Again, the spirit can not counter this use of edge by spending its own edge so it just gets to eat it. The 7 hits is actually low, if you add up the dice I rounded down and the rule of 6, the expected result is actually slightly higher than 8. Net results: Reliable debuffing to the point a teammate, a really good drone, or a specifically optimized F5 spirit, could 1 shot it reliably. With edge, you can expect crippling rebuffs and 1 shots are common.

totally agree, was exactly my point, agains high force spirit, with the correct organization of the group, taking action one right after the other its the winning strategy.

Relying on Edge expenditure when making calculations and comparisons (especially when it is only being applied to one side of the equation) just seems wrong to me.

I agree with fortune that slaughter spirits is probably better at taking out spirits. I'd still take mana static because it takes out people using foci to boost themselves to crazy town and shuts down mages in general by making them pretty much unable to cast (unless your GM routinely uses magic 11 mages) at force 5. Heck at force 3 which is pretty weak, it makes people with magic 5 have to overcast to get at best, a F1 spell, and M6 can get force 3.

My post from the nerfing thread dealing with this topic ...