This is covered by the "targeting via mirrors" and "targeting through transparent objects" debates - elemental manipulations can be (and are) blocked by anything between the caster and target. The effect is entirely on the physical plane and the resultant effect has to travel to the target. Closing a door is an entirely good way to deal with such spells, the door may not survive the fireball, but at least you will.

You may want to look these things up first. Fireballs don't neccessairily blow the doors off of their hinges. In fact, a starting level mage certainly can't do that trick.

For elemental manipulations, you use the normal barrier rating of an object for determining if it gets blown through. A regular door breaks open when its barrier rating has been reduced to 1/2 or less. For the sake of this, lets assume the doors most Shadowrunners are dealing with are equal to 'Average material'. What this means is that a relatively strong individual(Strength 4) can break it down in two, solid blows.

A 6<blank> fireball would hit an 'average material' of 4...and reduce the barrier rating by 1, in addition to make a 1/2 meter hole. The door has not been 'broken down', it is merely damaged. You'd need an 8<blank> fireball to blown open an average door with one hit.

Can you tell me the difference between a 'starting level mage' and one with lots of experience, but not yet initiated, given that they both have 6s in Magic and Sorcery? According to some interpretations of canon, a 'starting level' mage can have a Force 8 Fireball spell.

What 'level' does a mage have to be where his fireballs do blow doors off their hinges?

SR3, p.55 sums it up, for me and my players at least.

I don't care what their other skills are and have no intention of trying to codifying that. 'Starting level' in this context("starting level mage") means to me "A character whose magical skills and equipment are no greater than a character fresh out of creation according to standard creation rules".

-If you think

Means that the amount of Spell Points you spend buying a spell determines the Force(And, by extension, rating) a spell counts as for the purposes of all limitations on what new characters can have...

Then yes, you can have a Force 8 spell fresh out of the gate. I don't ascribe to this interpretation on the grounds that is it still a Force 8 spell. Perhaps I should have added "One interpretation of the rules on the spells a new mage can possess allows a mage to blow up a door with one spell if he takes a Rating 8 spell as exclusive".

Edit: Bastard Fortune. I spend too much time proof reading my posts.

They only way to effectively "block" a fireball spell would be to shield (absorb, reflect, etc.). Or, you have a freindly made in astral space with a held action enter into combat with the incoming spell and defeat/dispell it.

That was 2nd ed, when Exclusive or Fetish raised the effective force of the spell so you could learn a x force spell and cast it like an x+1 or x+2 force spell. In 3rd ed it was changed to only lower the drain code. So now you lean a spell at for X and test for drain as if it were an x-1, x-2, or x-3 force spell. Exclusive or Fetish doesn't even reduce the karma cost for the spell.

Believe me I went around with this my GM when I made my shaman. I was still operating on 2nd rules too. In 1st and 2nd ed you could make a mage with a lot more spells at a useful force by taking a force 2 spell and taking exclusive, fetish, or expendable fetish and bumping up the force one or two points. So for 20 force points you could get a good 10 force 4 spells out of the deal. Now you can only get 5 force five and unless you are taking spells with a force over your magic score or plan on slinging around a lot of high power magic without resting in between.

Read the example very closely and you will see the difference.

Unless of course you just keep the old rule as well as the new rule. I allow for either, but you have to chose which when you learn it.

The example on P. 181, BBB for fetishes is for a character learning a spell higher than their Magic rating after creation and deciding to limit it with a Fetish. You'll notice that 1. They refer to spending karma, not spell points. 2. They refer to rolling to learn a spell, something you don't do when deciding what spells your character starts with.

There are a lot of things you can spend karma and nuyen on after creation that you can't spend it on at creation. For example, I can't buy a Rating 7 Jammer or Rating 5 Maglock Passkey at creation, but if I've got the nuyen, sure, I can after creation. The example is for doing something post-creation that you do not have to deal with at creation - Rolling for spells and making it even clearer that yes, after you're out in the world and racking up karma, you can buy a spell at a Force higher than your magic if you really want to.

I'm not disputing you can spend Karma after that first run or whatnot to learn a spell higher than your Magic. If I have made it seem like I was disagreeing with the ability to do that, I didn't intend to.

If what you are trying to say is "The example Street Mage in the BBB could have had a Force 8 Manabolt listed on her sheet if she scrounged up 2 spell points AND without making it exclusive"...Well, I have to say I have no clue where you're getting that from. Clarification?



Oh. As I'm hijacking the thread, I may as well make a token effort to use the topic at hand in a post. I'm in the "Elemental manipulations actually travel from you to your target in the physical realm and yes, hitting glass will make it go boom-boom and potentially ruin your day." camp as the rules do say physical obstacles block them. You can also dodge them, so logically you need some sort of way of detecting it, whether it be auditory, visual, or some other sense,

A rating 2 power focus gives the caster 2 more dice, but doesn't raise the force of the spell. For breaking through a barrier the force of the spell is important.

I've seen enough pictures of birds perfectly blocking the license plate in speed camera photo's.

Depending on the GM's reason for doing it, the posibilities are endless.