Nope, I disagree. RAW leaves some room for interpretation. While you may believe your interpretation is RAW. I believe the RAW is a bit fuzzy. The first thing you can look at is a group of people looking at the same text references and some saying it is one way versus another. At that point claiming RAW is explicit is probably a bit generous.

Taking a general description of magic that basically says "Hey folks, don't forget magic has a tough time with technology and there's this table you can look at to see it's effects." and comparing it against the specific spell description which explicitly do say for specific individual spells to add OR to the resistance test, and also the explicit descriptions for particular categories and not others means there's a little discrepancy. Either the OR applies in all cases, which makes pages and pages of spells worthless, or the OR is applied in particular cases as identified by the specific descriptions. The RAW isn't explicit that either case occurs.

Otherwise we wouldn't be discussing this.

This is a canon of interpretation that dumpshockers need to drill into their fucking brains already: When the text is ambiguous, and offers two possible interpretations choose the one that is not absurd.

A large number of people on here are, frankly, biased against everything the developers do. The leads them to interpret every ambiguous thing to lead to the most absurd result possible, so that they can "prove" how shitty the game is, and how horrible these developers are for spending their time to write a game for us.

Here's what it comes down to: anyone who wants to use the most absurd interpretation possible can do so. Those of us who are actually interested in playing the game will interpret things so that it works, and isn't broken by its own terms. You can score the rhetorical points by "proving" that the game is broken. That might win you some internets, but as far as reality goes, it's not worth shit. Anyone who wants to play the actual game is going to treat your arguments for what they're worth: nothing. We're going to interpret ambiguities in favor of having a fun game, not a game that mathematically never works the way it should.

The fact is, the text does allow for OR to be used only where specified by spell category or specific spell. That is the way anyone would play, if they actually wanted to play. The only reason to interpret it the other way is if all you want to do is shriek about every possible problem you can dig up in the system.

I'm going to quote myself for great justice.

Because we don't know what the rules as intended are. Barring direct statements from the developers, we can only guess at what they intended. If it weren't for a direct proclamation from Synner, we'd assume the overcasting loophole was an oversight.

I can't find the link, but there was one thread on the silliness of everything having a device rating, down to your underwear. Instead of a dev saying that Device ratings were just for certain things, his response was that the Device rating in your underpants was so the laundry machine knew what setting to use. So, silly as it may be, the RAI wants your shorts to be able to connect to the matrix.

Given that by RAW Levitate indicates a success test I'm assuming OR is not required. Any insistence that OR does take effect is ludicrous; if OR did apply, then why the success test based on weight? Lifting a comlink works out to the same as lifting 800 kilograms of raw material. Or 800kg of comlinks.

Surely the way around the idea of not being able to levitate a commlink due to the OR is to put something with a lower OR under it and levitate that. The commlink might be tricky but a piece of wood is much easier.


I might be being silly or I might be being sarcastic I'm not really sure at this point

I Allways assume that the Developers intended the Rules to work and did not intend them to be broken

Hough!
Medicineman

BZZZT!!! Incorrect answer. OR is a Success Test metric. The game supports several types of success test metrics.

Levitate calls for a SPECIFIC SUCCESS TEST METRIC. The metric called for is a test successes against weight, NOT Object Resistance.

I suppose under the line of reasoning you are putting forth (despite stating you don't support it, hmph) that using Magic Fingers would require a success test against OR to pick up my cell phone since it would be an OR 4 object since Magic Fingers (obviously Magic!) is affecting the object. Never mind that the spell was intended to be used to pick up things and move them around.

The funny thing is, such a stance on your part flies right in the face of how things work. My cell phone weighs a mere 4 oz. Under your premise, I'd have to be a top of the line mage or a mediocre one with time on my hands to successfully cast a spell to lift my cell phone with a Levitate spell.

OR should only come into play when Magic is being used to enact an effect upon the fundamental nature of the object. Thus, casting direct damage spells against an Object, yes OR should be there. Using a manipulation spell against an object... depends. Are you trying to change its nature (make it walk, damage it, transmute it from one form to another, etc)? If so, then OR applies. Using things like Levitate, Magic Fingers, and so forth should NOT apply OR. You aren't changing the nature of the object. It's not being damaged. It's not having its form altered / destroyed.

OR should apply when internal effects are being enacted, not external. Damage btw, while it may have an external source, is an internal effect. It's not that hard to figure out when OR should apply and when it should NOT.

It's a valid way of ruining the day of highly magic resistant mobs / items. I've used this idea to great effect in D&D. Got a 100% Magic Resistant Creature? No problem. I cast a spell (Earthquake is a good one for this) at the ground to make a large hole appear. Magic resist a natural effect, Hah!

Or another favorite... magic resistant mob... cast Iron Wall above them. Gravity takes over after it appears. I don't care how magic resistant you are as a humanoid mob. A wall made of iron weighing several hundred pounds or more crashing on top of you is going to leave a mark... especially since the weight should you catch it is focused on your feet... I doubt the ground is strong enough to support that much weight per square inch.

So yes, Levitating the wood crate the commlink is on could in fact be quite easier if OR is supposed to apply.

But some of this arguing is senseless. Given some of the stances provided elsewhere in the thread, I suppose a Grease spell cast on stairs would need to beat OR despite it creating grease that would fall and splatter / spread over whatever surface it was cast over. Or that you'd have to overcome OR to be slippery to the shadowrunners' boots.

I'm with others in this thread. The Devs intended the rules to work in support of fun. I'll agree with Larme. Some are trying to purposefully tear things down rather than build things up.

What was the original topic on this thread? I have lost track!

Well, by some strict interpretations, you'd have to roll vs. OR 6 for every commlink in the box.

Should we even care what the RAI were? We're not playing Shadowrun according to Developer X. We're playing Shadowrun That Is a Fun And Good Game. If you want to take an ambiguous rule, and interpret it to make the game NOT fun and good, then what the fuck is wrong with you? I have a hard time believing that you'd follow your own interpretation in any game you'd play, because of how absurd it is. Here's a hint: if it's an interpretation you'd never use, it is the WRONG interpretation, especially when another one is easily available. OR only matters when and how the spell or spell category says it matters. Inanimate objects do not have a resistance test against levitate because it does not say they do, because to decide otherwise would ruin levitate and most other spells. It isn't the Devs ruining spells, it's you, on purpose, deliberately. And the only reason for you to do it is so you can "prove" yet again what an awful game it is. Again, that argument is worth bollocks, because anyone who actually cares about playing will realize that your argument is inane, and is not the only one out there. The one valid point of your argument is that the devs left an ambiguity which they could have fixed by being clearer. Fine, point taken. But since we're all thinking people with brains, we know how to apply our common sense and choose the rule that actually works.

What if I ate a commlink? Ha! No levitating me against my will, Mr. Mage!

Or maybe if I want to levitate a drone, I could first develop a Enwreathe in Flesh spell and cover the drone in skin. That must be why Terminators can only come back if covered in flesh - Skynet is a magician from post-2011 that needed to overcome the OR on its Send Through Time spell because it couldn't read the preceding paragraph.

And thus when the argument that something is RAW is proved wrong, its proponents successfully deflect it into a debate on whether or not we should apply our common sense to interpreting the rules. Which of course we should, but it's a strawman intended to implicitly get people arguing a hypothetical on the assumption that they were right.

Levitate does not depend on OR in the RAW. RAW = RAI in this case.

Magic Rule #x The more awesome it is to time travel naked the easier it gets.

Last I checked OR6 + OR6 = OR6. Effecting multiple objects with the same spell isn't any harder than effecting one object.

Depends on the Spell.

Name a counter example.

To fry the commlinks by power bolts.

Powerbolt is single target, Levitate is not (or I should say, it can effect more than one object even if it's cast with a single target).

Levitate is not an area of effect spell thus to affect multiple objects one has to cast it multiple times or try to be creative (like levitating the box in which the links are stored etc.)

You are just being petty...
Get over it...

Nah. It's just hypothetical. I don't use OR for Levitation.

Here is a nice one:

I want to cast a spell on PC, bearing weapons, commlink, other electronic stuff, armor, ect.. Some or most at OR 6.

a) I cast Invisibility. Do I have to beat the OR of the commlink in order for it to be invisible?
b) I cast Levitation. Do I have to beat the OR of the commlink in order for it to levitate?
c) I cast Fashion. Do I have to beat the OR of the armor/cloths in order for it to change?
d) I cast Mask. Do I have to beat the OR of the commlink in order for it to be covered by the mask?

Think about it.

a) The thing that has an illusion cast on it doesn't resist the spell at all, it's only the people whose senses are tricked by the illusion who resist. When something is being hidden by invisibility, its resistance to magic is irrelevant. You only worry about OR when you're using invisibility against a technological sensor, to fool it.

b) No. The only things that resist levitate are involuntary targets, they resist with STR + BOD (which I assume represents them grabbing hold of the nearest solid object, or even clinging to the ground, to resist being floated). Or, if someone is holding the object, they make can a test to prevent you yoinking it away from them. The object itself is always levitated provided you got enough hits to lift its weight. Levitate depends on the voluntariness of the subject for whether it's resisted, and because commlinks and other inanimate objects do not have will, they do not resist.

c) No. The spell works according to its description. Hits measure "the degree of style in the tailoring." The clothing doesn't resist the magical tailoring any more than it would a needle, thread, and an assortment of dyes.

d) No, same as invisibility. The only things that resist illusions are the things the illusions are trying to fool. The targets of the illusion have no resistance test at all. If I cast Mask on you to make you look like Gene Shalit, you don't resist the casting of the spell itself, it continues as long as I sustain it. However, you can see yourself, and as soon as you noticed yourself looking like Gene Shalit, you'd make a resistance test to see if the spell fooled your senses. However, even if you resisted, as long as the spell was sustained, people who failed their test would think you looked like Gene Shalit. That's how illusions work, they're resisted by the people/sensors they fool, the spellcasting itself is never resisted, and can be sustained even if it doesn't fool anyone in the immediate vicinity.


"But Larme," you asks, "how can spells affect non-living things without overcoming object resistance, when the book says that they usually resist spells with object resistance?" That, my friends, is yet another one of the bizarre inconsistencies of magic that has been with us at least since the days of FASA and 3rd ed. Magic is not a logical force, that's why it's called magic, and not science, and that's why so called magical scientists still don't know jack about crap in the 6th world. You have never had to overcome the object resistance of your clothes to invisibility yourself, nor has levitate ever been resisted by inanimate objects. All I can really tell you is the rules: do what they say. Each spell and category of spells tells you exactly how they work. Every time inanimate objects resist with OR is specified in those rules. Thus, illusions must overcome OR for the sensor to be fooled, because it says so. But they need not overcome OR to mask the sensor, because that is not specified. Direct combat spells must overcome OR to damage objects, but indirect spells are resisted with only armor x2, because that's what's specified. "OR affects everything" would be a blatant violation of a great many rules, and would nerf all types of magic for all time BEFORE the advent of the new table. It has never been a part of this game's rules, we have an unchanging tradition in Shadowrun that OR is implicated exactly when specified, and on no other occasions.

Bravo... Well Said!

Dito

Hough !
Medicineman

You're flaming the wrong person. I haven't commented once on the Levitate vs OR topic. However, once again, you're forgetting about Missions, where no house rules are allowed. Besides which, what's common sense to you might be utter stupidity to someone else. If we all just used our "common sense", we wouldn't remotely be playing the same game. I mean, common sense says a mage can cast fireball X times per day without Drain, if you've been playing d20.

But since you brought it up, what do you do when the rules make for an awful game? Rewrite the whole system from scratch? Dude, I am not shelling out $65 for a rulebook where I can't use any of the rules.


No. It's not an opposed test.

In fact, reading the quote from Street Magic that i've posted some pages ago, at least for Magic OR is a type of Resisted Test, and not Success (besides being rolled as a success test). Testing against OR takes place when you use a magic that should be Resisted/Opposed but the target is non-living.

Resisted Tests are still a form of Success Test. It's a nothing more than seeing if you got more successes than the target. If you do, you win. The only real difference in them is whether the metric is based on a resisting target, number of hits rolled, net hits, and/or any other other ad-hoc / custom requirements (like Levitate's Hits / kg metric).

Yes, you are quite right that an OR test is typically used in situations where magic is being used and should be resisted in some form or fashion. Thus when damaging inanimate objects, you have to either exceed OR or you follow the rules of the spell in question. An example of that situation would be using Direct Combat and Indirect Combat spells. Indirect spells have a different resistance metric than Direct do.

Levitate is different. It has a metric based on the object's weight rather than OR. Levitate isn't changing the base nature of the item/person being levitated. So it doesn't have to worry about OR. Nothing that is Nameable about the object/person is being changed.

I was talking about the way the rule system names the rolls... SR rule system names the rolls as "Success", "Opposed/Resisted" and "Extended", and the way they work on the system is based on this. I know that Resisted is a form of Success test, where the threshold is your opponent's hits (in the end, about every roll in the game is a "success" test, since the roll is a form to decide if you had success or not), but for the system a "Resisted/Opposed" test is one thing, and a "Success" test is another... the system use those names to refer to the roll-style, so it's better to not "mess" then when talking about the rules to avoid confusion.

This is a red herring, and proves nothing related to the argument in progress. Find me someone whose common sense is to read the OR rules in such a way that every single spell must overcome OR when it includes an inanimate object in its area of effect, and then maybe this point is relevant. But when there's consensus, there's no point in wondering what would happen if common sense didn't lead to a clear result. This is a question of absurd vs. non-absurd, it's not a close call where subjectivity leads reasonable minds to differ. The only way to read the rules as applying OR to all spells is to intentionally do so for no other reason than to rhetorically "prove" what a bad game SR4 is. And what's this about house rules? The rules are very clear, they tell you when you must defeat OR. Following them to the letter is not a house rule.



Another red herring. We're talking about one simple choice here: interpret the rules to transform the game into an awful one, or not to do so? Even you, with your noted anti-SR4 bias, should be able to agree that, when we have a choice, we ought to interpret the rules to make the game as fun as possible for everyone, and not torture ourselves by picking the worst interpretations we can to intentionally create a miserable game experience.

What are you smoking, again? There is no consensus on the Levitate vs OR, and I'm not taking any position on it.

For a guy who keeps bragging about his common sense, you're not showing much of any. I think you mean someone else, and not me; you just can't get over the drubbings of the past to see that.


If the whole book is full of worst-case interpretations, why buy the book in the first place? You're suggesting the rules aren't bad, because we can replace them. That's like saying a Pinto isn't a bad car, because you can overhaul it into something different.

As for m "Anti SR4 Bias", some of the things I've caused rumpuses over have made it into SR4.5. Customer feedback is a powerful tool.

If the whole book is full of worst-case interpretations, why buy the book in the first place? You're suggesting the rules aren't bad, because we can replace them.
Hmmm ,It seems to me like you only read what You want to read,Cain !
Larme said that If some Rules are not totally clear you can interpret them as to make sense and
enjoy the Game or you can Interpret them as to make no sense at all and hate it because The Rules make no sense to You (well thats what I read with my imperfect English,correct me please if I'm wrong,Larne)

You're suggesting the rules aren't bad, because we can replace them.
No !
All Larne said was that you can interpret the Rules two ways,not to Replace them
and from what I'm reading that what Larne says/posts makes more sense to Me as what You are posting

and By-The-Way ,can somebody tell to me,why Cain is so Anti-SR4 ?
I'm very new to the Forum.Maybe this could explain something ?!

with an interpreting Dance
Medicineman

Anti-SR4 or Anti-SR4A?

I don't know for sure,that's why I'm asking

with an unsure Dance
Medicineman

I'm still feeling pretty anti-SR4A DCS Drain & New OR table myself.

Now what's interesting about this snippet is it's not exactly correct.

Direct Combat Spells "... need at least one net hit for the spell to take effect." (SR4, page 195-196). But what's interesting is Active Detection Spells only need to "handle the spell as a Success Test with a threshold based on the Object Resistance." (SR4, page 198), and Illusion spells again state they only work when "the caster achieves enough hits to meet the Object Resistance threshold." (SR4, page 201, emphasis added).

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but when you have a test that requires 4 hits, and you get 4 hits, doesn't that test succeed? That's how Active Detection spells work now (need 6 hits to affect vehicles/drones, not 7+). And when you meet something, not surpass it, doesn't that mean you just need the number you're aiming at?

I think people have been misreading the OR table's interaction with spells to assume that Direct Combat OR mechanics work for all spells, which is simply not the case.

Larme is committing an either-or fallacy. There's more than two ways to interpret a rule, none of which may be fun. He's suggesting that there's his way, and the un-fun way, which is also insulting. Ultimately, what he considers to be an "interpretation" really amounts to a house rule, which is a replacement. House-rule enough of a system, and you're not playing the same game anymore.

You're presenting us with a logical non sequitur: because people can disagree, whether reasonable or not, there's no common sense answer. If you'd like to prove that my arguments are wrong, go ahead. But until you or someone else manages to destroy my last few posts, which have received only agreement so far, I'm not going to concede that reasonable minds could differ on this one. You're saying that someone could disagree therefore I'm not right, and I'm saying that this does not logically follow. People can disagree with gravity, that doesn't make it uncertain. Unless someone's disagreement has some sort of reasonable basis, it is not sufficient to create uncertainty, or call the common sense answer into question.

I mean seriously, are you telling us that every spell having to beat OR is non-absurd? So far, you're not, you're just supposing that someone else thinks that. Are you saying that it's common sense to think that Catalyst intentionally demolished the magic rules by making technology almost immune to every single spell without a single word of text in any spell or spell category to this effect? That's what you claim is possibly a common sense argument? You can't refute specifics with generalities, the fact that people can disagree on anything in general doesn't mean that there's a reasonable dissenting opinion in this particular discussion.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "drubbings of the past," but it sounds a lot like the infamous ad-hominem fallacy that you're always accusing others of committing.



And here's a straw man fallacy. I'm not saying that the whole book is full of worst-case interpretations. I am talking about this one rule. Furthermore, I'm saying that in order to find this so-called worst case interpretation, you have to disregard the text, disregard logic, and disregard common sense. You have to intentionally dig to find the worst possible reading. The only reason to undertake this endeavour is to actively find problems with the game so you can score rhetorical points online. Nobody who actually wants to play would ever choose to make OR apply to every spell, because it's unworkable. Therefore, the argument that OR applies to everything is disconnected from reality, it's smoke and mirrors with no other purpose other than to prove a platform for more of the same anti-Catylist shrieking. There's no replacing of the rules happening here, except by the people who have the deep seated need to "prove" that the game sucks. And even they are being disingenuous, because I'm sure that none of them would actually play according to their own so-called interpretation.



So far, you've steadfastly asserted that you have no position on this. Are you saying that you believe OR applies to everything, even when the text doesn't say so? If so, prove it. Calling my argument insulting does not refute it in any way.

Ahem. I present: Not Immune, a small work on Object Resistance and the Reality of Spell Mechanics.

No one's really missing anything.

6+ is pretty freaking hard unless you've gone for broke to totally min max your dice pool.

This still boinks Illusion spells.

If you want 18 dice in Illusions to start, you're looking at Spellcasting 6(, Magic 6, Mentor Spirit, Spellcasting Foci (Illusions) F2.

That's 119 BP worth of investment, and you haven't picked up any spells yet.


Now, if all sensors are OR 4 and you're supposed to roll against that and not the drone itself, then things look a bit better. It's still a nerf, but it's not the extreme nerf that hitting OR 6 would be.

Could someone explain the changes to sensors, specifically with regard to drones, because I'm not certain I'm understanding it.

The capacity is determined by the rating, but there doesn't seem to be a capacity usage for any of the video/audio enhancements. In the sentence leading up to the descriptions of the types of sensors it indicates rating = number of enhancements. So would each enhancement have a capacity of [1]? As for drones sensors, the rating = average of sensors, so if you only have 1 camera with a rating of six would have a sensor attribute of six?

Bleh you're right, that is confusing. My take is that the audio enhancements are simply enhancements for a microphone (or other listening device like earbuds). They do not take up capacity at all, because they're a subsystem of a sensor, they're not sensor systems themselves. Same with the vision enhancements, they're simply subsystems you can install into cameras (or glasses or goggles or whatever). The only things that take up capacity are the ones that are listed as such. The capacity for audio and vision enhancers lets you do things like put a sonar sensor into your earbuds, or an ultrawideband radar system into your glasses. For enhancements, all you need to worry about is the cost and availability modifiers, not capacity.

Cameras don't have a rating. If you had one sensor on a vehicle, and it was a camera, it would use the vehicle's default sensor rating. To upgrade sensors, you need to upgrade every rated sensor a vehicle has. The average rating would become the new base rating. Unrated sensors like cameras are upgraded to the same rating automatically, so that's how you get your camera to count as a rating 6 sensor.

HEe means that your blindly keep attacking against him about subject he's not arguing for, this OR ablyis to everything isn't cain's argument.

That's it exactly. I haven't taken a position on the OR argument yet. I'm listening to the arguments on all sides, and forming my own opinion based on the data presented.

All Larme's argument does is scream: "Common sense! Common Sense!", when in fact there are logical people here on Dumpshock who have differing opinions on this topic. He whinges about fun and not-fun, but that also doesn't hold water. Also, we have the dev's intentions. I wouldn't have believed that it was their intention to make the drain lower when Overcasting; but that's what Synner said, flat-out.

I'm afraid the previous post contains no argument, and nothing for me to respond to. It's a flat statement that I'm wrong, with no support. I don't believe anyone is still insisting that OR applies across the board, as far as I can tell those still on this thread now agree that you must follow the rules as stated in the spells section without engrafting a new OR requirement onto everything. You keep saying that reasonable minds can differ, but as no reasonable minds have voiced their dissent here, I think your argument is the one that doesn't hold water. If you believe there's a rational argument on the other side, go ahead and play devil's advocate and make it. I'll listen. What I won't listen to is you claiming I'm wrong based on the hypothetical argument that maybe, someone, somewhere might have a valid beef with the currently accepted formulation.

Ow, I think my brain just melted. We're arguing about who's arguing what side of which argument now.

Or something. x.X

I have no idea what you're talking about. This seems to be an "Attack Cain because he's Cain" argument, with no facts or logic to back it up.

But, I will take you up on your one challenge. Here's a quote from the top of the page (my page settings may be different than yours):

So, apparently RAW says that OR applies to Levitate. It may be a stupid ruling, but it is (according to him, not me) the only interpretation you can make.


Larme (and a few others) do this. I have cyberstalkers who'll attack any statement I make, even if it's "The sky is blue".