Since drain is determined first by F/2, and now by +1/net hit...raising the force by 2 gets twice the result a spellcasting success does, for the same amount of drain.
And even better, resistance is relatively unimportant, as long as you get at least one more hit than the target.

So if you want to do 10 stun damage to someone, you can:

cast a force 5 stunbolt and hope for 5 successes and resist F/2-1+1/net hit = 7S drain,
or
cast a force 9 stunbolt, use one net hit, and resist 5P drain. Same damage, 2 less drain to resist.


Somehow, I don't think this is what they were going for.

This has been brought up numerous times. Synner (or Adam - I forget which one) have clearly said that they are unconcerned about this, as they do not believe Overcasting is a big deal & were not trying to fix it.

Which, put simply, is bullshit.

You are correct. It's one of the things I don't like about the new mechanic. I'm just amused because every other thread in here since this was released is currently a giant flamewar on the subject. Synner has stated that he has no problem with it encouraging overcasting and that this is actually intentional. I can't see why that would possibly be desirable, however!

Note in your example however, that you'd have to be very lucky to get those five hits in the first instance because hits, not net hits, are capped by the Force of the spell so your target would have to get 0 successes to allow you to get five net hits.

K.

Well, do remember that 7S is approaching a migraine headache while 5P is like half dead from internal injuries (did you just say my liver is smoking?) so it's not like overcasting doesn't come with a price. Personally I think the rule needs to be replaced but I'm still working on a rule mod that doesn't mess-up something else in the process.

Reminds me what I told my GM. My character has a magic of 4.
F4 stunbolt is 1s drain, using 2 net hits gives 6 damage for 3s drain.
F8 stunbolt is 3p drain, using no net hits gives 8 damage for 3p drain.

With 8 dice for drain tests I can soak 2 2/3 drain on average. On average 1 out of every 3 spells I will suffer 1 drain.

It is the same with "Ball" spells.
F4 stunball is 3s drain, using 2 net hits gives 6 damage for 5s drain.
F8 stunball is 5p drain, using no net hits gives 8 damage for 5p drain.
Yes, 5 drain is harder to resist but come on now... what really changed...

It gets worse when you start dual casting, using the first example I can spit out two F7 stunbolts for the same drain as two F3's. Yes it is physical but the drain amount is the same.

There is a solution.

Don't permit mages to choose how many hits they take. I've not read the SR4A, but from what I've seen it can be taken two ways.
1. A Mage rolls, and the target rolls to resist. Mage chooses how many hits to apply with the benefit of knowing the target's result already. Mage has great deal of control over drain they suffer.
2. A mage rolls and chooses how many hits to apply. Then the target rolls to resist. If the mage takes too few hits, no effect. If the target is unlucky, the mage might take a hefty drain. Drain is unpredictable.

I choose interpretation 2.

force 5 stunbolt w/ 5 net hits = 7s drain
force 9 stunbolt w/ 5 net hits = 9p drain.

If your mage gets "lucky" he might be stuck with even more drain, since he can actually achieve up to 9 hits with a force 9 spell.

So mages then get double hosed?

More drain for being successful is the dumbest idea I've seen in a long time. But you're actually suggesting making it worse?

Wow.

Though I can see your point Ornot, I just can't swallow the "you rolled too well lad! Take extra damage!" mentality. It's like telling a street sam "Hey, your cyberspur attack was really good. You killed your target and then stabbed yourself. Take Strength +3 Physical damage."

Or worse, if he threw in edge. Which would rapidly stop all direct combat-casting whatsoever.

It's one thing to take a reasonable risk, it's something else to play Russian Roulette with a random number of bullets. Using that rule is right up there with banning mages.

If I wanted to play without magic, I'd pick up Cyberpunk.

First, it is my opinion that the reason for the changes to drain is because in essence combat spells are not resisted. The abilitty to do near instant death for near minimal cost (through magic) was deemed a problem. Its not like the face (for comparisons sake) can do a negotiations roll, get 3 hits over you and suddenly you drop dead.

It is also not about overcasting either because the argument for overcasting is that you can just cast at higher force and do more damage. Honestly, in my years of GM'ing players do this anyway. Why? Because when they are fighting a tough opponent (including/especially magical ones like spirits) they would rather risk some drain/damage and instant remove their target rather than doing small chunks of damage.

Now, I can understand many people having trepidations over this change in magic casting, but when you look at this type of spell and realize that most combat involves 4 'stats' (Reaction, possibly Dodge, Body, and Armor (somtimes half armor but that costs +2 drain!). And that some of these numbers (namely Armor) is usally 2x as much as a typical stat, you realize that a Combat Spell is extremely overpowering. WHile this switch isn't ideal for alot of people...it could be worse...

It could have been decided that all combat spells do 1 damage + net hits but no increase in drain. Done in this way it would be self limiting due to Force controlling your hits. This would have created nearly the same level of balance that the current rules in SR4A seems to be using.

Seen the Pornomancer? Yeah, it's not 3 hits over you, but by the RAW, you're pretty much fooked.


The problem I've got is that raising the force of the spell functionally lowers the drain!

You were just complaining about the new rule making overcasting more desirable. Now it's too dangerous. Make up your mind!

I like magic being a double edged sword. It's not like there aren't precedents; Hackers use hotsim, although it puts them at greater risk of injury.

His point is that normal casting is wild and dangerous, but overcasting is reliable and safe, which makes no sense.

Bingo!

The problem was that before, you traded Force for Drain. Now, you don't. In fact, overcasting comes with less risk of drain, and Synner seems to think this is a good thing.


There's a lot of house rules being proposed, but the most common is a flat increase in Drain to direct combat spells. That would have solved both regular casting and overcasting without creating a new mechanic. Someone else put it best: they fixed the wrong problem.

That's my sig, but I likely stole it from someone else.

What made ICS better over DCS was the increase to OR.

There are a couple easy ways to make the mechanic work:
1) Instead of +1 Drain per +1 Net Hit make it +1 Drain per 2 Net Hits. This means that increase the Force and using less Net Hits is the same as using less Force but more Net Hits. Drain = (Force + Net Hits) / 2
2) Instead of using the Magicians Net Hits, increase the drain by 1 for each hit the Target gets on their Willpower or Body roll to oppose the spell. This would make it very similar to Summoning Drain. This second option also has the nice touch of not punishing the Magician for success.

While simultaneously gimping half of all Illusion and Physical spells in the process.

I wonder if we need to beg for a direct improvement to Indirect Combat Spells.




While those ideas have merit, I still dislike adding new mechanics when it's not needed.

I like #2 the best, but how do you see that working with AoE Direct Combat Spells?

Also how does another mage's Counterspelling hits factor in?

Eventually you get to a point where you add so much drain that it just becomes a non-option. I dislike that on principle.

True. Seems to me as if there needs to be two OR numbers: physical OR (resistant to change of form) and "mental" OR: how much of a brick it needs to be to be fooled by illusions.

Honestly I don't see that fixing the problem.

For one thing, it then adds two OR tables.

For another, while it might work to make combat spells all but useless against technology (which I don't see a need for), and might also help Illusion spells out, it still leaves all of the physical manipulations totally gimped.

The reason I dislike that, is because this gimping seems to be the result of indirect combat spells being a poor option and not because OR 4 is candy canes for any magician to overcome.

So like the sig says 'fixing the wrong problems'.



The problem is indirect combat spells are a weak option. This should have been fixed FIRST.

Instead they way they went about it was this.

Desired Result: We want Boy B to be handsome.

Problem: Boy A is incredibly handsome. Boy B is ugly.

Solution: Smash boy A's face in with a sock full of pennies.

End Result: Boy B now looks better than he did, when standing next to boy A.

Lingering Problem: Boy B is still ugly.

I have a fix that not everyone may like, but it works and it is simple and it is very, very straightforward.

Drop all Physical Direct Combat spells. The mana based ones can't affect machines so OR is no longer an issue. Thematically it works fine because it leaves physical damage in the realm of creating actual physical effects. You can then, if you wish, also keep the original ORs.

It's an Alexander the Great approach to a Gordian Knot. it doesn't solve the problem, it eliminates it. Thoughts?

Khadim.

This does not help at all with the new drain mechanic. It only hacks the gordian knot of the new OR. Mana Direct Combat spells are still nerfed by the new drain, and a mage is still best served if he overcasts with no extra damage.

I still think the best fix is to simply remove the sub-systems. Allow both a Defense & Resistance Test against Direct spells. Yes, they are no longer "special" (aka different), but that is part of the point. Streamline the rules, & achieve balance (or very near to it) at the same time.

This particular fix does not affect the new OR table, but I solved that one by simply knocking the examples down one step - natural objects (Trees, Soil, Water) are OR 0; Low Tech Objects (Brick, Simple Plastics) are OR 1; High Tech Objects (Electronics, Alloys) are OR 2; Highly Processed Objects (Drones, Computers) are OR 4; Highly Processed Advanced Tech Objects (Complex Synthetic Toxins, Nanotechnology) are OR 6.

True - it only solves one of the problems. Personally I'm just ignoring the new drain mechanic and adding +1 to the drain for Direct Combat spells. I never had that much of a problem with them so it's not a concern.

They were always best served by overcasting DCS. Even if the drain was about 1 or 2 points higher, it was always better to overcast them to ensure that one net hit was enough to knock the target out (or outright kill it if needed) than having to cast the spell twice or more times thus having to resist the lower drain over and over again (thus trying your luck with drain resist rolls more than needed).

where is this new drain mechanic posted anyway

I think I'll solve the problem with more physical damage applied to my mage. toss a grenade at him once in a while, and maybe he'll think twice about pouring drain into the physical side.

I posted more details in another thread where I originally came up with idea #2. Area spells would use the highest number of hits generated by any of the targets affected. Hits from Counterspelling (I was initially thinking) would count along with all the opponent's hits. However, this effect could easily lead to too much mage-head-exploding effects when casting. In which case, option #1 and #2 could be combined so that the drain of DC spells becomes: (Force + Opponent Hits) / 2. Most of the time this will only add 1 or 2 to the Drain DV of the spell.

Another option might be to drop the new mechanic altogether, and instead change the Drain for DC spells to just Force instead of Force / 2. This would make the Drain similar to SR3 when the Drain's Damage Level was based on the Damage Level set by the mage when they cast the spell.

I'm not sure I'm going to integrate any of these new rules, however, as DC spells have never been a big "problem" in my game.

It's not a bad idea at all. I like (Force+Opponent Hits)/2, no counterspelling and if AoE use the target with the highest resistance hits for the whole group.




That would be too severe IMO.




Me neither, which is why I don't agree with the changes that were made, nor why they were made.

So... what happened to the Ram spells? Seems like those spells are hosed no matter which way you go.

-paws

The solution I'm house-ruling is to not divide the spell force by 2 when calculating Overcasting drain, and otherwise leaving direct combat spell drain unchanged from SR4.

They seem to be "acceptable losses" in all the changes (read: nerfs).

The Ram spells got more useful, since the slightly lower drain, compared to a "power" spell, might now be useful. More so if you need multiple castings to beat the OR.

You're discounting the new OR table. Which makes that line of spells not only limited in target (which can be a benefit as well), but also seriously limited in effectiveness.


Demolish Clothing will still work wonders in your favorite nightclub however.

I am not. If I would not have to leave the house in 30 seconds, I would give you a few numbers on repetitive casting attempts.

We will cope easily within the options present since the beginning of SR4.

What if the Direct combat spells would be resisted by attribute x 2.
Or if the drain was old drain code + hits on resistance test of the opponent.

Since the maximum number of hits was always capped by the Force of the spell, and knowing that that meant that a Force 6 spell was needed to take down the average security guard(body/will 3=10 boxes physical/stun, body/will 3 averages 1 success on the resistance test, so that you would need to get 5 hits on that force 6 spell to hit that 10 damage, while the best you could get with force 5 would be, on average, 9 boxes) meant that most mages were going to have to overcast already(since how many started with magic 6?). If you ran into Ork or troll guards and only knew physical spells, or dwarf guards and only knew mana? Yeah...you were overcasting even higher..heck, for all three, if you were not dropping a stunball, you were having to overcast. And, if you were facing a cybered HTRT? Overcasting, again...Or attempting multi-cast "death by papercuts" method.

Honestly, I would rather throw a couple multi-cast force 3 spells and resist the drain with full dice then I would cast one big force 6 or 7(or even 10!) spell and take physical drain

I'm not so sure about that. Since I don't have the new OR table I can only talk about the old one. Clubgoer clothes should be OR 3, which would translate to 4 or 6 I guess, as most of them would use high tech fabrics and would have RFID chips in them.

In my favorite nightclub, it won't change much for the girls.

I saw a suggestion for using Attribute + Edge (+Counterspelling) to resist Direct Combat spells. That really struck me as pure awesome. Under that system, mooks would still be mooks and important NPCs and PCs would be tougher. Seemed like a w1n to me, and it didn't involve adding any funky mechanics.



That's a fair point I guess.

Actually, looking at the spell again, I forgot that is was [object] restricted, which makes it less appealing somehow... May need to write up versions that are restricted to non-living objects. Hmm.

I guess Demolish (Firearm) would be an okay choice...

-paws

Emphasis mine.

Unless I'm misunderstanding your post.

I don't like it. It makes the edge attribute even more of a catch-all. I prefer skill over luck.
Since every device is wireless enabled per default, and most guns are smart, this would mean an OR of at least 4!

I was thinking SR2 era versions of the spells, which, unless my memory totally fails me, were not restricted to specific types of objects.



Yeah, that's probably correct. Since we're (apparently) pushing magicians to hyper specialize, take mentors, and grab mad foci, I guess its not a huge issue. Right?

Force 10 Demolish (Firearm), 12 DP for about a 50% chance to trash all the guns in the area of effect... Drain Value 5P + net hits (probably 1). Not something I'd really want to casually cast, but in a life or death situation, it could be worth it.

Yeah.

Hey, I don't suppose the new list of sample characters includes the Burned-Out Mage?

-paws
Why toss a fireball when you can pack an HK-227?

I had actually suggested this earlier. It seemed like a decent mechanic to me, and it would somewhat discourage Overcasting by making it far more risky. If your opponent got a lucky number of hits on their resistance test you could be facing some very serious Physical damage.

The same is true for normal casting. The difference in drain between Force 1 and 7 (which is Overcasting for all uninitiated mages) is only 2. 3 to 6+ hits on a lucky spell defense is much more significant if you follow this houserule.

BTW damaging the attacker by the defender has been removed from melee combat, so why wopuld you reinsert this dubious rule into spellcasting?

It's not a completely foreign mechanic to the game or to the Magic sub-system. Drain from Summoning works on the same principle. However the entire discussion is predicated on the assumption that Direct Combat Spells need something done to them to counter-balance their effectiveness. If you don't find DC Spells as overpowered in your game, then you can simply ignore the new changes.

However, if one scrolls down some of the threads, you'll find a poll with several replies about the entire Shadowrun Magic system being "game breaking." In that thread are several people that post that Awakened characters can do "everything better" than mundanes and "anyone that cares about the crunchy bits" of Shadowrun plays nothing but Awakened. I think that some of these changes to Magic (more DC Spell drain, higher OR thresholds) were in response to some of these discussions. So, I find it interesting that in the midst of "3 whole categories of spells are useless" discussions, there are still threads about "Magic is broken, its better than everything." There are obviously still polarized opinions.

Hell, if all they wanted to do was discourage direct combat spells cast at objects, they should have simply modified the drain by +OR.

Quick, simple, and painful even at a 4 OR "cap."

Because it's still existant for spellcasters: look at the summoning/binding rules.

You know what, that's a pretty freaking good idea.

Direct Combat spells remain the weapon of choice against living targets, Physical Illusions don't get nerfed and Indirect Combat Spells look significantly better vs. tech opponents.

Well done.

You could even put a stipulation into the Ram/Wreck/Demolish line allowing them to be used on inanimate objects at +OR/2 to drain or even none at all.




That's not combat though.

Heh - you don't shoot at the players' spirits enough then. I ran a combat once where the shaman raised no fewer than 4 force 8 spirits over a few rounds because the opposition samurai could take them out during their materialization delay.