Because I haven't seen it pointed out yet (apologies if I missed it): The notion that this change is to encourage the use of Indirect Combat spells may have some merit, but keep in mind that a separate change has already made Indirect more appealing. The increase in Object Resistance has made Direct Combat spells significantly less effective against drones, vehicles, etc. The value of this change in balancing Indirect and Direct should be considered slightly less than it otherwise would have been if we keep this in mind.

Don't forget that indirect combat spells have been screwed over, too. Counterspelling is used for the initial resistance instead of damage soaking, now.

The spellcaster being able to choose the net hits is the only thing left that gives the mage any hope with the new rules. Making the mage pick his number of successes beforehand doesn't add "mystery" to the game - it makes mages all but unplayable - the new rules make them virtually unplayable already, and adding that extra difficulty would be the nail in the coffin. I'm completely with Synner as far as that goes, although I still think the changes to both direct and indirect spells were ill-conceived and completely unwarranted.

Luckily for me, I guess, our experiences differ. I've seen mages fall unconscious several times, twice being my own character. It tends not to happen when the characters are prepared and everything is going well since other people can pick up the slack and the mage doesn't have to cast all that many spells and can easily get medical attention during the slow times. But when things go to hell and you have to keep casting and there's no time for a couple characters to stop and take a break drain can add up fast.

It's a lot of fun to have your position be in danger of being overrun and having to decide between one last spell to hold it off or hope that your teammates pick up your slack if you don't. I'm sorry you haven't had that experience, but I highly recommend it.

I agree, and I'd be very interested in knowing what the purposes of the changes actually were. I may or may not agree about whether the changes are a "good idea", but I'd be more inclined to use them if I knew what problems the authors were attempting to fix. As far as I can tell the object resistance change will seriously harm magic's effectiveness against technology, and not just for combat spells. I'm all for indirect spells being the choice for mages who want to take out drones, but I like the fact that currently they are much better, but if you're a very powerful mage (throwing 12+dice) using a direct combat spell is an option. Not a great option, mind you, but it's there. The problem with the change, in my opinion, is that this is not the only effect of the new object resistance. It also changes how many dice a mage will need to make illusions effective against drones. This seems to make illusions next to useless given the prevalence of drones.

So, if the intent is to make indirect combat spells the go-to spell to use against technology the changes seem overbroad in response. Perhaps an increase in object resistance for "combat spells" would have been better? But perhaps the intent was to limit magic's effectiveness against technology across the board. Given this edition's changes to bring magic and technology closer together and less at odds with one another, I'd find that purpose to be a bit odd. No matter what the reason for the changes, I'd like to know them.

What I don't understand is why they took a mechanic that did not follow any other combat mechanic in the game and changed it so it does not even follow the magic mechanic.
Seriously, what happened here?
Direct combat spells where a problem, yes. But this "solution" does not fix the problem only sweep it under the rug as it where. Fix the problem by making it so unappealing to use is not a fix.

The better solution would be to bring Direct Combat spells under the same combat mechanic as everything else. Give them a "dodge" test. Use willpower or intuition (I vote intuition) as a dodge. Like someone subconsciously shifting their aura to stop it being flooded with mana.
Thus following the dodge/resist mechanic.

Also, shifting the +2 drain modifier for "elemental" spells to direct combat spells.
Given that (most) indirect spells use 1/2 armor and direct spells negate armor switching the two make sense.

Also... using the same mechanic for healing spells uses essence loss as a dice pool modifier for the casting mage. (maybe an optional rule...) (I would add it to the "dodge" test to make math easy when casting "Ball" spells)

All of that still makes Direct Combat spells useful and brings them in line with all other combat mechanics and magic mechanics in the game. It actually fixes the problem not just cover it up.

It smelled like that over here before the SR4A was published.

Lars

I'm *so* with you on this one. Who'd want to play, if you get hurt by doing well...

Edit: Just to make it clear, this means I'm happy with the way you choose net hits

In a conceptual sense, the mage gets hit coming and going on direct spells now.
On the one hand, extra success on his spell casting are either painful or of reduced value,
and on the other hand, it has always been the case that extra success on drain resistance don't do you any good at all.

It does seem strange that rolling many successes, which is normally consider a great thing, is now either irrelevant, or a good way to hurt yourself. If they wanted to up the base drain by 1, they could have just upped the base drain by 1.

Yours,
Joel M. Halpern

Can someone help me understand this contradiction of rules?

p 183/184
Note that objects targeted by Combat spells get to
resist the damage as they would any ranged attack; use their Armor
rating x 2 (or just Armor against spells with elemental effects) to resist
the damage (Barriers, p. 166).

vs. page 206

Direct Combat spells cast against nonliving objects are treated
as Success Tests; the caster must achieve enough hits to beat the item’s
Object Resistance (p. 183). Net hits increase damage as normal (the
object does not get a resistance test).

I think they forgot to include indirect in that somewhere...
Note that objects targeted by indirect Combat spells get to resist the damage as they would any ranged attack; use their Armor rating x 2 (or just Armor against spells with elemental effects) to resist the damage (Barriers, p. 166).

Doing the math it really isn't as bad as people think. A manabolt with 3 net successes does the exact same drain DV and damage DV as an flamethrower with 3 net successes. The difference is that the manabolt's damage is all automatic and their is no resistance roll. Conversely, the indirect spell has an elemental affect that comes into play. None of this even takes into account the situational variables that make one type better suited than the other.

If you want to say that Powerbolt is a better comparison to indirect spells because they are both based on body that is fine. For the same drain DV you are doing 1 damage DV less with a powerbolt, but it is still damage that can not be resisted. Again, all other situational variables being equal, I'd sacrifice 1 damage DV instead of letting the target roll Body + 1/2 impact armor to reduce it.

According to the rules a threshold of 3 is considered Hard. At my table, where players roll in the neighborhood of 10-12 dice on things they are good at, we are talking about 3 net hits on an average spell. I do not see it as being penalized when getting enough hits for a hard success, and increasing the damage respectively, puts you at a comparable drain value to a spell that gets a soak roll.

I noticed that earlier and was confused. Until I hear otherwise I'm also assuming it's a mistake. It's big news if it isn't!

The example makes this a moot point. Hits-resistance = net hits

Here's a catch I see in here a lot of people are missing. As soon as you have any net hits, the spell is successfull, After that, it's simply a choice of how much drain do you want to risk for damage.

"Every net hit used to increase damage"

Synner's example explicitly uses the original 3 net hits to say, yes the spell worked and had effect. Then he turns around and uses none of them to increase damage. His exact words are "Which he may then choose..." I don't see a huge issue w/ this outside of the fact that SR combat spells were already somewhat gimped.

The best fireball was already an incendiery grenade. Now it's even more so. The best single target 'damage' spell already an APDS round (fired twice per round even!). Now the drain seems pretty punishing leaving only one time they're usefull... when armor is rediculously overwhelming. Oh well, maybe eventually every net hit over a firearms test will add to recoil.

Agreed. Once the mage gets into the hands of intelligent players who are capable of doing math, the chance for knocking yourself out from drain reduces considerably. You dont see mages knock themselves out from spells because when they get close to the edge THEY STOP CASTING!(and that usually means they do nothing for the rest of the run that involves risking drain).

I started playing Shadowrun in the initial days of SR2 because my parents bought a box of game books from someone they knew when I was first getting into D&D & Battletech at the age of 10 or 11 (bout 15 years ago). That box had SR1 in it, and I started asking around and soon found out SR2 was the game. I was a kid then, and pretty unoriginal so I played Decker/Mage combos non-stop and quite a few of them died after going KO from the drain from spellcasting.

I STILL to this day dont bother with conjuring spirits. I keep a F4 usually on hand to help me out in a pinch because SR4 allows that to be the case without spending hard-earned cash on an unbound spirit.

Thematically speaking...

I'm channeling energy through my body, and using it to hurt someone. How much energy? Force. How much do I hurt that guy? If I can hurt him at all, it's Force. Beyond that, it depends on my success test. How much does that energy hurt me, in the process? Let me make another roll.

Enter SR4A. Now why would a better-cast spell do more potential damage to me? Because if I cast it better, I get more energy than I had originally intended.

It kinda makes sense. But other spells that depend on raw energy for effect should have the same mechanic. Like armor, barrier, fling... and indirect combat spells.

But even then... the amount of raw energy you're channeling is your hits, not your net hits. You don't take more Drain from casting better - you take more Drain from affecting the target better.

The way I see it, thematically speaking, the total hits are the process of of casting the spell against the target. The target resists, reducing the amount of energy that reaches it. The net hits are the strength of the mystic conduit between the caster and the target, establishing how much mana the the mage can potentially send down the link.

Like Wind, it seems to me that this would make sense for any spell that relies on pure power.

I don't know if that makes sense. Trying to cram a post in between phone calls/customers is kind of a pain...

Intuitively, it would make sense if the Drain of a spell were directly linked to the Force, and be left at that straight across the board. But it isn't. There are many qualifiers that modify the Drain, both up and down. A perusal of those qualifiers suggests that the more one tries to control the flow of mana through his own aura/person, affecting factors such as area, material, permanence, etc., the more the mana affects them, in the form of Drain (See p. 163, Street Magic - Drain Modifiers Table).

In this respect, the SR4A modification to Direct Combat Spells falls directly into line with the philosophy behind Drain modifiers. Unfortunately, the modification stretches the broader paradigm of Shadowrun: the Dice Pool represents how good you are at a task and hits represent how well you perform the task. The Drain rules have walked the line between these two guiding principles of Shadowrun for a long time. If one takes exception with the SR4A modification to Drain, then all aspects of Drain should be re-examined, particularly those that make Drain higher if more control is exerted on the flow of mana.

I've had a little time to think this over. And I can see why they're doing this. But at the same time, this is far too extreme as well. The problem is they've 'fixed' the extreme cases as best I can tell, but in the process destroyed most any capacity for low-rating magic users to even think of trying these spells. (god forbid you use edge to increase net hits to increase damage! now as it stands any use of edge there pretty much necessitates using it again on your drain soak). And my problem here is the extra damage comes at 1:1 w/ extra drain.

As anyone who's played chars w/ only a magic of say 4, operating in a typical background count of 1.... okay now I'm already operating at Magic3, and all my spells already have their force increased by 1 for drain purposes. Stated again, casting at force3, already invokes force4 drain in these fairly common areas. Please correct me if I have any of that wrong.

I think a far better solution would have been to continue the above model. Any net hits MAY (not must, not min 1) can be used to increase the force of the spell. This would effectively increase the drain by 1 per 2 net hits (as well as make the old saw of, I cast at force 5 just so I get 5/2==2 drain less relevant as now net hits could and would increase that reliably and w/ a little bit of unpredictability).

Another catch in here is this. Astrally, the only combat spells you can use are direct combat. So any magician worth his salt still really needs one, maybe two in his arsenal.

Synner, does that mean that in case of area spells you

a) always have to suffer the maximum drain according to your net hits, no matter how many you use to increase the damage to each target in the area?

or

b) you can choose the extra damage for each target in the area of effect, but the highest number applies to the drain?

Nah - they've created new extreme-case problems.

My current example is Skippy the janitor - Body 1, being in the AOE with a couple drones you really, really need to take out NOW. Pretty much an automatic +6 to the drain...even though he's an incidental target.

Expect hamster balls glued to combat drones as direct AOE combat spell inhibitors.

No. Rocks. Small rocks.

Hamsters are actually better, assuming they have a BOD of 1. One die is better than a threshold of 1. In 2/3 cases the net hits on the hamster are equal to the hits on the spellcasting test and not hits -1.

Oh, I can so see that in a game...

Player: "WTF ? Why does that Steel Lynx have hamsters glued to it?
*casts spell*
Player: Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! *explodes*

Touche. I was thinking an empty hamster ball with an OR of maybe 2 (plastic/maufactured).

But that doesn't necessarily add to the drain. It doesn't even reduce the damage to your intended targets.

Three people in AOE - one resists with four hits, another with three and Skippy gets none. You cast at F6, and rolled six hits. Everyone will take at least six damage, and your head doesn't explode. Now, how many net hits do you want to use? You could say none, and you roll your easy drain test. But you have up to 6. You have to take out the two high-threat targets, and you were hoping for ten damage. The GM didn't tell you how many hits each target rolled, but you're hoping no more than two, because you haven't been rolling very well on drain tonight. You say you'll use four. Your drain level is upped by 4. You only had two net hits against the first, so he takes 8 damage. The second takes 9. Skippy nearly explodes, due to 10 damage.

If Skippy wasn't on the scene, the damage to the other two targets wouldn't have changed. If the GM told you how many net hits you had on each target, you would have chosen the same damage/drain level as if Skippy weren't on the scene.

Here's how I plan on playing it. The GM doesn't tell you how many hits you got, but after you declare, he tells you the max drain you take, based on the max net hits you had. In other words, you don't know how many net hits you got, but you can't take more damage than you got net hits. This has the disadvantage of letting you do more damage/drain than necessary when a low-WPR bystander/target is in the AOE. We'll see how it goes.

Except that it has been very clearly stated that the mage knows how many net hits he has so he can choose to apply them for more damage or not. None of this blind bidding crap.

Okay, I guess I missed that part. Doesn't really change anything, except that worst-case scenario I mentioned at the end. But it's not really blind bidding. You know how much damage you want to inflict. You know what minimum is (force). Tell the GM "I hope I rolled 4, because that's how many I intend to apply." She replies, "sorry, you only got one."

Blind bidding does fail though, say Force 10. "I don't want to apply any net hits to damage" vs. "I take no hits to counter his resistance."

IE the first one does damage for no increased drain, the second says that you have to choose how many of your hits you'll pit against the other guy: choose too few and the spell might fizzle, choose too many and you might kill yourself all based on how well the other guy rolled.

Apparently, net successes used to determine if you hit or not are independent of net successes used to increase damage.

Let's say you throw a F6 manabolt, and get 4 successes. Your target rolls 2 successes. You have affected your target with two net successes, that you may choose to apply to increase damage (and thus, Drain). You can choose to apply zero successes to damage, and your spell still takes full effect.

I'd rather like to see one of the devs confirm that for AOEs though - it doesn't seem to be spelled out in the rules, and the comments are all over the place.

So: mage has 5 hits on an AOE spell, targets have 1, 3, and 4 hits...how much is his drain increased?

Can he say 0 net hits for damage and hit all of them for force damage and standard drain, or does he have to say 4+ to affect all of them?

Since a Mage is pumping Mana in to the target, I think it is more like a samurai walking his SMG fire in to a target and then determining if he is going to keep pumping rounds in to the target or conserve ammo.

I mean all a person has to do to convert a short burst in to a long burst is keep holding the trigger down physically or mentally. The reason you use short bursts is it is easier to keep on target and conserves ammo.

So once a Mage has linked up with his target and cast the spell, the question is does he keep pumping Mana in for a fraction of a second more than needed to cast the spell and pay the piper in the form of higher drain or does he cut it off and keep the drain under control.

Draco, I don't get what you are talking about. You can't choose too few, letting the spell fizzle. You can only choose not to use net hits to increase damage. If you roll more hits than an opponent, the spell affects him. Period. It does damage equal to force. Now how many of those net hits do you want to use to increase damage/drain? Pick a number: 1 through the number of net hits you rolled against the target. That's add it to the force. For an area spell, you pick a number from 1 to the maximum you rolled against any opponent, and the damage done to each opponent is equal to Force plus either the number of net hits you rolled for that opponent, or the number you chose, whichever is lower.

You are correct, except for one thing. Net hits used to determine if you hit are not net hits. Only after you have succeeded, and you total them up, do they become net hits. But that's just a technicality of wording.


The answer is apparent once you actually roll the dice. According to your example, you have 4, 2 and 1 net hits. If you say you want to use 1 net hit to stage up the damage, then it's obvious what happens, right? Now let's say you want to use 4 net hits to stage up the damage. The first target takes 4 more DV, right? Sure. But what about the third guy? You only had one net hit on him. It doesn't make sense to say you did 4 extra damage when you only had one net hit against him, so he only takes 1 extra. But you chose 4, and you did 4 extra damage to the first guy, so that's how much drain you take.

Synner did say on page 1 of this post...

I give up on you. Because I was pointing out the difference between the previously posted understanding (wrong)* and the correct way (correct). You just told me that the post I made saying what the wrong way was was in fact the wrong way.

No.

Shit.

I think that's what I said.

*Or at least my interpretation of the words in the post

*shrug*

I've personally always liked the idea that even for a magician the quickest and easiest way to take out a target is a bullet to the head. I think magicians where too versatile, too powerful before, and I like this along with the object threshold rating. You hire a street sami for combat, you hire a mage to turn your team invisible, implant a suggestion in the guards mind, or see whats going on past the next door.

Bah, you've just seen Wizards too many times.

That movie is wacked out. Of course, the creator WAS on LSD at the time...

Then perhaps we simply have two very different view of what Shadowrun is. In my view, the game is designed so that every "problem" has many solutions. You don't just hire a street samurai for combat, you hire a combat specialist. Whether that specialist happens to be a magician, adept, street samurai, or some combination of these easily recognizable "classes." You hire a medic for healing and you hire an infiltration specialist to sneak into places. Whether these people heal and sneak around with technology or magic is up to the character and the group. Since working together and supporting others with magic and technology usually ends up making someone better at their chosen role. What's the problem with that?

My opinion exactly. The Runner's Companion seems to say the same. There are are essays about the different roles in a team and most have one mundane and one awakened build suggestion.

There's plenty of GMs out there that will say if you "use one net hit" that you'll only hit someone with less than one resist hit. There are also a number that will rule it as above (that's certainly how I'm leaning.)

Which is why I noted that the comments about how this is supposed to work are all over the place and asked for a Dev to state the rules-as-intended clearly. Synner's one-line answer didn't address which targets would be struck, only that the drain from an AOE is always worst-case for the mage, given the struck targets and "net hits" used.

I don't really want to see opinions rehashed (yet again) over this, I'd like a actual official answer.