Good evening, Gentlemen.

I would like to start by saying that as I heard that SR4 was in the works, I got so excited that I started to design my own game (having only played 3E online through a MUD, I never saw a rulebook and didn't understand the mechanics). Well, in a week and a half I had designed a game tentatively named 'Fallen,' and as I was fleshing out the magic system and designing some races (I didn't like balancing bonuses with penalties, so I was creating elves, orcs, and trolls to be more powerful than humans, but needed a balancing factor. The concept of BP for me was born of that), I went to a bookstore to find that 4E had released. I browsed through that and immediately was both excited and happy, and began to mourn my project. My game was identical to SR4 (what of it I had written), down to damage codes for weapons, stat gaining, skills (mostly), and Edge. And that was designed solely by me in slightly less than two weeks. The only thing really different was mine was a fantasy-based game (I only heard about Earthdawn recently).

It has come to my attention that the OR tables and new drain mechanic for Direct Combat spells seem a little.... harsh, and most of this board tends to agree with me. I can see where the game designers were going with this, but on a road from Washington DC to New York, but they took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

Instead of what most people do (simply complain), I put my brain muscles (I know brains don't have muscles; bear with me) to the task of fixing this error, and to that end this is what I have come up with.

Direct Combat Spells:

In order to simulate the greater difficulty through which channeling pure mana in a destructive nature (Direct Combat Spells), increase all Drain Value of Direct Combat spells by +3.

Punch and Death Touchnow have a Drain Value of DV: (F/2)+1.
Clout and Manabolt now have a Drain Value of DV: (F/2)+3.
Blast and Manaball now have a Drain Value of DV: (F/2)+5.

Shatter now has a Drain Value of DV: (F/2)+2.
Powerbolt now has a Drain Value of DV: (F/2)+4.
Powerball now has a Drain Value of DV: (F/2)+6.

Knockout now has a Drain Value of DV: (F/2).
Stunbolt now has a Drain Value of DV: (F/2)+2.
Stunball now has a Drain Value of DV: (F/2)+4.

What this does is makes Direct Combat spells difficult (but not impossible) to cast, making Indirect Combat Spells much more attractive (that was the point of the current changes), and keeps the danger of Overcasting firmly in place (instead of more attractive, as the current changes do). It also goes with the nature of Errata, meaning making slight changes rather than rules overhauls.

Object Resistance:

Category--------------------------------------Threshold

Natural Objects--------------------------------------1
(Trees, Soil, Unprocessed Water)
Manufactured LowTech Objects and Materials----2
(Brick, Leather, Simple Plastics)
Manufactured HighTech Objects and Materials---3
(Advanced Plastics, Alloys, Electronic Equipment)
Highly Processed Objects---------------------------4+*
(Computers, Complex Toxic Wastes, Drones*, Vehicles*)

*Note that Vehicles and Drones are suggested to be 1-3 points higher, as the DM feels.

That is definately the feel the designers were after, without making many other spells either unviable or completely unreliable by extention of the current proposed tables.

TO THE DESIGNERS: Feel free to completely rob me of these Ideas if you (pleasepleaseplease) decided to like them. I love Shadowrun, and would gladly help out in (nearly) any way possible. I won't hold it against you if you take these Ideas, and I wouldn't even ask you to put my name in any books (if you decide to use the changes I propose).

EDIT: Edited for Superior Quality.

You failed at the Drain. Although it has been brought up by a few people before, changing the Drain from F/2 to F is by far worse than what they have already done.

The goal is not to make Direct spells worthless - the goal is to make Indirect spells better. There are two things that would benefit this:
First, make the elemental effects better (I do this by making Duration based on the elemental effect - Acid continues to burn after the spell has hit)
Second, make Direct spells worse, slightly. This can possibly be accomplished with a fixed +1 to Drain. The better fix is to remove a sub-system, allowing both a Defense & Resistance test against Direct spells.

The end result of my suggested changes is that both are viable, and in a situation where both are applicable, the Indirect spell is better, but pays for it with 2 higher Drain. Because of that, it is not always going to be first choice, even when it is more powerful.

I do not agree with you, sir.

I fail to see how changing the drain to the above makes Direct Combat Spells "worthless," and if they really wanted to make Indirect Combat Spells better, all they had to do was reduce the drain.

So we're stuck with raising the drain on Direct, or lowering it on Indirect.

And changing the Elemental effect would only benefit Acid spells, since all other elemental effects are instantaneous.

That aside, what did you think of the OR table?

Well, some posters think the reason Indirect Spells were not changed directly is because that would affect the street magic spell design rules.

Original Post has been changed, brining (IMHO) a much better errata suggestion to the table.

Why would that be a better change?

You're now most certainly nerfing direct combat spells even harder than the 4A does.


Here's why.

All of your spells have their drain increased by +3

4A direct combat spells have no drain increase.



In 4A if you applied 3 net hits, increasing the DV of your spell by 3, your drain is now increased by +3.


For the drain increase in your version, you get nothing. Just more drain. I.e. a Force 5 manabolt does 5P with 5 drain.

For the same increase in drain (+3), in 4A you'd get more damage. I.e. a Force 5 manabolt does 8P thanks to 3 net successes. It does 5 drain.
The same drain as yours, except your added drain comes with no benefit.

Except that his spells you can add an unlimited number of net hits to damage with the same drain.

Well you do need to add 3 just to break even, but that's a good point.

I don't have a problem with just more drain on some spells, though this seems a bit excessive. Out of the ideas I've seen my preference for drain changes was -3 to drain but full force. This kept the drain about the same as current drain out to force 6, but once you past force 6 it increased rapidly. Despite there comments to the contrary a big issue with magic is the overcasting. That is what drain changes should focus on, reducing overcasting. (I also think saying first aid does not work on drain would be a good change)

The reason I proposed said change was to remove an additional rule/subrule system. When you start adding rules, you start going the way of "4.5". If you just, say, change something that already exists, then all you've done is create errata, and that's what they're saying they wanted to do. Reprint the book with some errata. What they're doing is reprinting the book with some new rules. Rules which, if implemented, are going to need changes to all the other books. Hence why a lot of people say this is looking like 4.5.

If my Direct Combat drain errata is used, all you do is errata the numbers slightly higher, while keeping the same versatility in casting (not needing to cherry-pick Force and overcast like it's nothing), and overcasting remains a Bad Idea.

Well if the system goes toward a better version I will welcome the 4.5 ed, it doesn't need to be a whoole new ed with a new BBB, it can be just a book with different systems for different areas of the game, altrernate rule, if you like it use it, if you don't there's always the original BBB rules; there's nothing that say that the rules must be a monolitical block, let's call it an hypotetical "Rule Companion" ("Unconventional Shadows"?).
Anyway HERE is a link to an idea of mine for this 4.5 ed that nobody seems to want, it's just the part relative to the combat spells but it could be extended to make a whoole new spellcasting system.

Your rules are very interesting, but I believe the additional rules would simply bog down gameplay a little more (not neccessarily a lot, but more than neccessary). I always believed that SR was a game about fluidity and being able to approximate rather than working by-the-rules-textbook. My proposed change would be a small thing to help mitigate the "power" of Direct Combat Spells, thereby making Indirect much more appealing, without adding subrules or changing the very fabric of the rules.

And, in fact, I thought the bit about dropping drain from physical damage spells and indirect was a very interesting point. That alone may work better than my proposed change. However, my change stayed with how the current SR4A rules seem to be going (Direct Combat Spells are dangerous and hard to control).

I wanted to come back to this point, and explain why I don't like the way this system works.


So while yes, you can add endless net hits to increase DV without penalty, you have to add at least 3 hits just to break even.

What this does, is penalize the starting mage. Who already has things a bit rough, in terms of staying power, from drain.

Increasing drain this way means starting mages have more drain to deal with, with generally spellcasting pools that might at best allow them to break even.

So eventually, it might be beneficial, but your mage is going to need a lot of dice to consistently get more than 3 net hits.

So... Less QQ from Direct Combat Spells and more PewPew from Indirect... Which was the point of the current SR4A changes anyways. It honestly amazes me how so many people can't even think of Indirect Combat Spells, so when they see the 'nerf' (read: balancing) of Direct Combat spells they believe all mages universally have become neutered.

My changes do not 'penalize the starting mage.' It instead makes Indirect Combat spells much much more attractive, while still giving Direct Combat Spells their place (Break in Case of Emergency!).

Except your method of making Indirect Combat spells more attractive is the same one of the Designers. And it's also the method I disagree with.

Indirect Combat spells are a poor choice, not just because of how direct combat spells function, but because of their own mechanics.


So I'll say what I've said in other threads.

If you want to improve Indirect Combat spells, then Improve Indirect Combat spells directly.


And your changes do penalize the starting mage. Now they have a choice between massive drain for direct combat spells, or massive drain from indirect combat spells.

Not to mention that your drain rules break with tradition and fluff, in that creating physical, elemental effects are more draining and difficult than spells which channel mana.

Your powerball for instance has a higher drain code than acid stream or ball lightning.

I see that as an unnecessary nerf, as well as inconsistent with the current background on how magic works.

The last thing we need is to make magic even STRONGER. There's really no reason besides 'flavor' to play a mundane as it is. Make indirect spells "better" in addition to direct spells already being awesome and we might as well all just start playing Mage: The Awakening and get it over with.

I prefer the idea of just leaving the Direct spells as it is in 4e original, and allowing a resistance test of Willpower+Stat(Intuition, maybe? Not sure here.) Counterspelling would still come in handy, here. But for a character with a 3 Willpower and 4 Intuition(tie going to defender-they shake off the spell just like a defender from a gun would). If the spell hits, they could resist with Willpower as before to try to stage down the damage(as someone would roll Body to stage down the bullet.) I really don't see anything wrong with this fix. Direct spells are still nasty to a non-caster; 7 dice to try to shake it off and then, say, 3 to stage down still likely means pain, especially versus a Force 6 Manabolt cast with 11 dice, but it's not a guaranteed insta-kill at that point. It also gets mages making sure they want decent Magic scores and Spellcasting, much like someone who is shooting a gun or swinging a sword, since they can actually be defended against.

As for Overcasting? Well, at least here it doesn't seem better as it does with the 4a changes. An Overcast spell will hurt someone pretty bad, but a mundane can still make that called shot to increase their DV by +4 at the cost of 4 dice. They can do that without the risk to their own body, on top of it. They might miss the shot or strike with less dice, but the mage is still going to be eating Physical drain even if the other person manages to resist it. It might even make overcasting riskier in the sense of the ''Spell Dodge'' test might succeed and they get to eat 6P drain while the other guy stands there brushing off his jacket.

As for making Indirect spells a bit better, I'd go for increasing the time on the secondary effects. That seems like it would be useful.

That would only benefit Acid spells. All other secondary effects happen instantaneously. Unless you're saying that when I shoot you with a Lightning Bolt, the round after you get hit you have to make the Shock Test again (which I can kinda see, but is silly).

You could...I don't know....increase the duration of the effects of a failed shock test.
Failing that being a duration you could increase any numeric values thereof.

Lighting someone on fire seems like it might last a bit, if they aren't extinguished anyway.

I agree like, Blast or something wouldn't have a point. Electric only if it's viable...if they are say, standing in water and holding onto a fence, I might rule that it keeps going.

Honestly, upon reviewing the rules as they stand (pre-SR4A), I fail to see why such a change is necessary. This thread was primarily an effort to use a (in my opinion) superior ruling rather than adding another sub-system into the game.

What I use, & suggest, is
Defense: Intuition + Counterspelling
Resistance: Willpower + Astral Armor (Mana) or Body + Astral Armor (Physical)


Except mundane characters are just as viable & useful as Awakened. Direct combat spells are generally more powerful than firearms only because they do not allow a Resistance test. Indirect spells are universally worse than mundane methods as written.

Most of everything else they are capable of can be matched or exceeded by mundane means, and there are a few things that are mundane-only. Whatever versatility mages have, they pay for it hard, in BP & Drain.


Lightning Bolt already has a duration effect, and for some reason, it seems to be an exception to the Instantaneous spell duration. Acid would benefit, but is not game-breaking. Fire also benefits, but is lacking on the mechanical effect due to poor 'thinking it through' on the developers side.

There is absolutely nothing that a mundane can do BETTER than an Awakened person. And technically you *do* get a sort of resistance test with direct combat spells; you just can't dodge them. And since you're resisting a Manabolt or Stunbolt with your will alone, and no armor, you're just plain screwed unless you have your own mage. There is NO mundane equivalent to this; even the best attacks give at least half impact armor.

I know it's a popular fiction on this board that magic is just fine and nothing needs fixing, but the fact is that this game has slowly morphed into something that is magic first, tech second, and absolute mundanes are completely useless.

Infiltration. Argument countered.

You honestly think a mudane is going to infiltrate better than an Adept? Have you ever PLAYED Shadowrun?!

Given that the best infiltrator I've seen was a charisma monkey with no magical talent at all...

You sound a lot like Hermit.

In your defense, you've yet to claim that a magician can replace an ENTIRE TEAM of characters, but you're still claiming that magic is always better, all the time.


Why don't you join This Thread, and show us what you've got?

I dislike the addition of a second stat to resistance because it messes with the fundamental principle of Shadowrun which is that Aggressor Wins. It's the same with Firearms. Unless you give up your actions to try and dodge, you only get Reaction (one stat) with which to defend yourself. And firearms usually come with more dice than spells. If you start balancing defence against offence, you end up with D&D. Shadowrun is Eggshells armed with hammers. Magical eggs have bigger hammers but they sometimes drop them on themselves.

Regarding Indirect Spells, my opinion is that the new OR balances them just fine. Indirect magic is a backup for particular circumstances. If it does the same damage at the same cost in the same circumstances as Direct, then what's the point in having both?

Shooting all guns. Show me a magic character who can pick up any (non-exotic) gun and shoot it greater than 22 dice. Since it is any gun, you can't count specializations, Smartgun or Lasersight (well, you can but then you gotta beat a DP of 26 in a pistol, automatic, longarm, and heavy).

The pure mundane with those pools also has a 20 DP in unarmed and a 20+ DP in every Perception sense except touch.

Well, technically, by RAW, ties go to defender in defense tests...to I'm not sure I always buy aggressor wins, I have to admit. Reason: I've seen too many instances of aggressor NOT winning. Guys have tried to hit my sam before, and he responded by fully dodging their hit and pasting them. People have tried to shoot him, he dropped into full defense(interrupt), wasn't hit, closed in, and with his extra passes proved that bringing a knife(albiet a big, nasty one) or his big, steel-capped boot to a gunfight doesn't automatically mean lose. Come to think of it, I can't think of an instance where the aggressors actually won against our team; if anything, when WE instigated the attacks were when things got hairy! (Mainly due to the enemy being able to use their environment and the like as an advantage against us.) Surprise attacks notwithstanding, of course-those are heavily weighted in the place of the attacker no matter who does it. Indeed, the times we more easily successfully instigated was done by surprise.

But take a look at our track record-when they instigate, we tend to win, and win pretty hard; we use our resources like cover, and full defense interrupt, and our martial arts maneuvers like Riposte, etc. When WE instigate...well, we haven't died yet but things sometimes(not all the time) ended up much hairier and we were sweating a bit. Again, it could just be personal experience, but I really haven't seen this Aggressor Wins too much in our games, with all the things leaning toward the defenders(in our experience, defenders tend to have home territory, know the layout of the place better than us, and are being careful. But when they attack us, we basically force them out of their comfort zone, so to speak, and into what we do best.)

Even the rules...things like 'tie go to defender'. Maneuvers to help the defender counterattack(Counterstrike, Riposte...the latter is very easy to get and requires you take ONE martial art and a maneuver.) Large melee defense pools, or the ability to get them. Combat Sense. Cover. Range modifiers. These all seem like they weigh toward the defender. Sure, attackers get nice stuff, but IME, again, defender is where you wanted to be. Even then, our team is far from 'eggshells.'

However, I could be willing to see that the Defense roll could be Willpower, and if you go ''full'', you can add another stat to that. (Astral Armor is interesting, but...not many people have that it seems.) In fact, Magic seems to be the one thing where the aggressor wins most of the time-again, from experience. Since they don't have things like defense rolls, and the best they can do is try to hide their entire body from LoS(probably taking them from the fight in the process), mages end up indeed sort of tipping that.

Of course, I may have misread your whole post when I blathered on here.

Yeah, totally. But never mind.

Perhaps "aggressor wins" was not the best way of putting it. I normally describe Shadowrun as "Eggshells armed with hammers". Basically, people can dish out more than they can take. You only have to compare mechanics like attacking being Attribute + Skill and defense being Attribute (in both firearms and magic) and the steady diminution of your dodge pool with each shot, the complete mismatch of ten to twelve boxes on a condition monitor with common guns that can do 5P twice an initiative pass, three initiative passes per round even before we start adding people's net hits. You look at how the ability to take damage doesn't scale with improving your character much compared to how the ability to deal damage scales. A couple of security guard mooks with a couple of grenades can wipe out the most experienced shadowrunning team if they catch them off-guard. Not least of which the speed with which things head South once you start taking damage. You don't get characters that can't be hurt in Shadowrun. Only rarely and even then with the right planning they can be taken down.

Contrast it with a game like D&D where a character ten levels above your own can't be hit, wont notice it if they can. Consequence is that D&D is a game about balanced groups walking up to each other and hitting each other till one falls over. In Shadowrun, if you can circle round your opponents and attack from behind, if you can shoot the Johnson under the table when he's not expecting it, if you can catch the security guards in their common room with a grenade at the right moment... then you win. There's very little chipping away at people bit by bit. Because your ability to do damage is greater than their ability to take it. And the same is true for you. That's why Shadowrun is so filled with sneaking around and treacherous backstabbing. If defence could be multiplied the same way offence can be, then the game would be a very different one.

Ok, NOW I see what you are getting at more. I was thinking of it in a bit of a different way.

Though it's funny. On full block or parry, a character can get a fair amount of melee defense dice; assuming, say, Reaction 4, Dodge 4 and Melee Skill 4, that's 12 dice, and the attacker with Agility 4 and Skill 4 rolls 8. But, of course, if that dodge roll doesn't pan out and you are forced to defend, things do get a little hectic(assuming the attacker in the example I just gave has, say, a 4 strength and a katana, thats 5P damage and -1 AP base. If they sneak through with 2 net hits somehow, that's 7 damage that has to be soaked...needing, on average, 21 dice to take it all away.)

Dodge rolls rule, in other words. NOT getting hit is the best defense, but I CAN agree with you when the time comes to actually soak the hits it can get kinda bad.

But dishing out more than they can take? Yeah, I can feel you there. My sam kicks a security guard in the head for 11P and 17 dice, that 4 Body, 2 Dodge, 4 Impact armor guard is probably getting his head caved in. However, that same little guard can pop my guy with a heavy pistol twice for 5P each-even though he might only be throwing 8 dice to do it, that's still my whole non-full defense die pool and even with 19 dice to soak I still worry. 2 shots that get through at 2 and 1 net hits means I have to try to soak a 7 and a 6 hit allll the way down one right after the other. So yeah, I admit, we do have the ability to deal out a looot more than we can take typically, unless you're playing a 13(+3 Damage), 6 Dodge, 8 modified Reaction, 5 Strength with little to no melee, Heavy Body Armor wearing Troll Tank. (In other words, twinking for defense instead.)

Full Dodge or Full Parry work with Rea + (Weapon skill x 2) or Rea + (Dodge x 2), not Rea + Dodge + Weapon Skill.

By the way, you should always spec your Dodge for (Ranged), and spec'ing a melee skill, let's say Clubs 4 for Staves with a Rea of 4 will get you 16 dice for a Full Parry (Rea 4 + Clubs 4 [+2 Staves] + Clubs 4 [+2 Staves] = 16). I don't see why people ever get damaged in melee; it's too easy to Parry/Full Parry.

It gets worse with the Two Weapon Style maneuver.

Oh, in that case, it's even worse, since weapon skills tend to be higher than base melee dodge skills. Worse as in, even more Defense dice. I was here doing Rea+Weapon Skill+Dodge/Gymnastics Dodge. I need to record that I have more dice to defend now.

But yeah...Spell defense is...little to nonexistent in this game, almost, compared to melee defenses. At the same time, our table never had a problem with the mage ruling over everything, OR being left behind. Other tables have. I suppose it's a question of experiencing it.

Only if you don't bring a mage along. Counterspelling can cover everybody within a mage's LOS without penalty, can be specialized for combat spells, and there's a metamagic that increases the counterpelling dp by the mage's initiation ranks. Oh, and it uses the working together rules, so two-or-more mages counterspelling everybody can roll a crapload of resistance dice.

It starts out weak, but you can suprisingly quickly reach parity.

Not to mention a Wagemage doing an Extended Binding (or whatever it's called) with a spirit that has the Magical Defense (or whatever) Power, expressly to give a lot of Counterspelling to the guards on duty.

Well, fight fire with fire, I guess. Without the mage, getting out of LoS, getting rid of the mage's sight somehow, or full cover is about all of the defense, and even then a Fireball or Elemental Spell can still affect people behind a wall as far as I know(since it zaps the whole surrounding area.) I know the Direct AoE spells won't affect people the mage can't see, at least. Our group is well set; we have a Mystic Adept medic with a decent Counterspelling pool to kinda help cover us a bit. It's not huge, but even 6-7 dice counterspelling isn't horrible.

Just do what Watcher does and shoot mages with a sniper tuned Ares Thunderstruck Gauss Rifle from 1.5 clicks away while making a called for damage shot. Even if the mage is walking, he will throw 23 dice and smack him for 20+p damage.

That just falls back to the egg shells with hammers thing. Oh yea, and spirits... considering the 1/2 armor effect of the Thunderstruck... yea...

-1/2 AP - an additional 4 after halving.

Why All the Vitriol... I have played for many years across many campaigns... In my experience, the magic system is fairly smooth, and mundanes CAN do things that the Adepts/Mystics/Mages cannot... even at the higher levels of Karma...

By the same token, Magical characters can indeed do things that teh non-magiocal can only envy... this is okay for both the development of characters and story.

Note that any good team is going to have a good mix of character archtypes.

YES, an all magical team is very powerful, but is not insurmountable by circumstance or the equally powerful Tecnologically enhanced team...

Stop hosing down the decks with testosterone here...

As for mundanes infiltrating better than an adept:

They can come damn close when it comes to pure die pools. Now, adepts have other abilities-cloak, etc, which also helps with infiltration. But from a PURE Infiltration skill standpoint:

I can make a mundane with Agility: 10(and easily....6 agility and some modifiers with restricted gear under RAW, it's an elf), a 6 Infiltration(+2 urban), a Reflex Recorder(works for stealth I think), and he tosses 19 dice for urban infiltration. (if the RR didn't work, he's still at 18 dice.)

An adept might have to cap off at 7 agility(since improved attribute is still too expensive), 6(+2), but then also has +3 to his skill from Improved Stealth(the max allowed for a 6.) Total Urban Infiltration Die Pool=18.

Both of them can wear camo/chameleon clothing, which helps equally. Now, again, the Adept has other nifty powers which starts to push him over-Traceless Walk, the mentioned Cloak, and the like. He probably used up a couple of power points at least(around 3, if he takes a few levels of Cloak.)

The adept has the advantage, but the mundane can still be one sneaky bastard, and I'd be hard pressed to say the above example of a classic sneaky infiltrator sucks in any way. The mundane has his own advantage-a higher Agility in which to link all those other die pools, and he spent a bit less Karma on his Agility stat(assuming an elf, where a 6 is not capped.) Not to mention he has a bit of extra Karma for other things that he didn't spend on upping Magic.

(yeah, I use Karma for my examples, but you could switch with BP just as easily.)

Once again though, it goes to the Mundane vs. Adept-the Adept in this case is better at his specialty(as they usually are), the mundane dood is still excellent, lacks a few tricks that the adept has, but has a more wide array of things.

Examples, please. Given that an awakened person can get all of the same mods that a mundane can, and offset the magic loss by initiating and buying up their magic, it is literally impossible for this to be true.

Now calculate the karma costs, and think of all the things the 'mundane' could do with it.