No - but the drain value for all the spells increases for each spell cast.

If you fire off multiple spells in a turn, here's a question I couldn't find the answer to in the books:
Could you do either of the following:
A) Fire more than one spell at the same target (for example, hitting a target with a stunbolt and a 'control thoughts' at the same time). I'm not saying it would necessarily be useful, but is it allowed by the rules?
B) Fire two of the same spell at the SAME target (the book explicitly allows two of the same spell to be cast simultaenously - could this be done to the same target? Like firing two or even three stunbolts at the same schmuck at once.

I know this would use a lot of dice, and cause a lot of drain. But could it theoretically be done?

Sorry for the confusion but the combat monkeys refers to the fact that the "Magic isn't broken compared to Mundane!" crowd always seems to stack things in favor of the gun bunny. Taking the example that pissed me off the gun bunny was shooting an ares alpha, full auto, with aim actions, and a called shot for +4 DV. Meanwhile the mages seem to never be more than mediocre at casting. And somehow it is harder for security to notice the full burst than it is to notice magic. Don't get me wrong -- everything in this game is broken -- for eg you can start play with a Troll with 35+ dice to resist damage and a FA capable Assault Cannon.

My example does only leave you with an expected result of 3P drain: (note I erred and had 11 as the DP using magic to resist drain -- sub drain stat at 5 plus a drug for +1 Wil, gives binom dist with 11 tries and .333 success)
******* Note that I didn't factor in glitches/critical glitches/edge **********

Hits Percent Drain E(Drain)
0 0.01156102 5 0.0578051
1 0.06358561 4 0.25434244
2 0.158964025 3 0.476892074
3 0.238446037 2 0.476892073
4 0.238446036 1 0.238446036
5 0.166912225 0 0
6 0.083456112 0 0
7 0.029805754 0 0
8 0.007451439 0 0
9 0.001241906 0 0
10 0.000124191 0 0
11 5.64503E-06 0 0
1(idiot check) 1.504377723 (expected drain from 1 spell)

Note that a third of the time (28.9%) the mage is taking 0 drain and this is the most likely result. Also note that I took human stats and only used the 1 mental enhancing drug. If you take a 1 die penalty to Spellcasting you can add +1 Willpower for Trauma Dampener, +2 logic for cerebral booster and then your chance of drain goes way down. Since you've already spent the essence you can also get the genengineering to allow you boost Will another point.(another +1 Will if you are a dwarf or you take a Cha Tradition and go elf for +2)

As far as the books go there is no guidance. For b) I go with the "it doesn't say you can't cast the same spell at the same target twice so you can do it." I would say that the answer to question a) is definitely YES.

@Muspellsheimr: Splitting dice pool says you split your Spellcasting + Magic dice pool. The focus, mentor, and spec all say that they increase the spellcasting skill or pool therefore also get split. Seems as if my math was fine. Please clarify where I went wrong instead of insulting me. Actually you will be taking >1 drain 71.1% of the time and you will be taking 1-2 drain 47.68% of the time. If you are really worried about it you can always use Edge to mess with those odds. As a final counter argument: DC spells totally bypass a target's armor -- how effective is your Ares Alpha against the troll I mentioned above? I can hit 40+ dice with ranged passive defense + damage resist easily -- mage scoffs at that and does 20+S to said troll. Show me your gun bunny build and I'll show you a troll defense build -- we'll see which you'd rather fight him with mage or gun bunny? My point being that the defenses against the gun bunny are easier and cheaper to attain than the defenses against the Mage (and furthermore the defending mage can make the mundanes resist your gun bunny even more).

BTW Confusion does work against DC resistance but you only get the net successes on Confusion as dice pool penalty.

PS. Table fail. How do you format? Looks nice when I type/edit but doesn't hold tabs.

Go back and review the section on Noticing Magic.

Well, ignoring the whole pixie dust effect, mana spells should be inherently invisible on the normal spectrum, astral of course is a totally different story. All elemental spells will definitely have at least a visual effect, if not also a noticable audial component, because for sound to do any real damage, it's gonna be fraggin' loud, chummer.

Magic on the whole is VERY noticeable. However, it has the advantage that afterwards only a very few people can see the evidence of it (apart from charred corpses). Honestly you can maybe cast a force 3 max without being noticed. Staying incognito is what manifested spirits are for

I thing X-Kalibur has the right of it on this one generally. There's a question of whether a mana spell will even show an effect on a camera, since it only effects living things. That's why so many of us have a gripe with this new "pixie dust" effect. For mana-only spells, it was about noticing the mage's concentration and focus on the target, plus their focus during the channeling, thus the reason previously the mage's MAGic score figured - it was easier to throw low spells if you're exceptionally powerful. Physical spells are always noticable, always have been, but noticing who caused them? There is no "glowing bead from your fingertip" unless you choose to have it that way.

i would go so far as to disagree with that statement. indirect spells are not underpowered. elemental effects are underpowered (mostly; there are a small number of elemental effects that might be close to worth +2 drain). indirect spells are fine, though. well... they used to be fine. i'm not a big fan of the 4A change to them... they used to be quite good for hitting people with heavy counterspelling and such. but that's easily changed (just put it back to before the change)

so yeah, if you want to get up and argue that elemental effects in general are crap? i can agree with that. but direct combat spells being overpowered? sorry, i just don't see it. not even remotely close to being a problem. once your target has been put down, it doesn't much matter whether he's 1 box into overflow, or 50, in most cases (assassination missions are a bit different, but it's quite possible to kill someone extra-dead with physical attacks anyways. i don't see any particular advantage for magic there).

and given the subject of the thread is "fixing direct combat spells", i'm inclined to stick to that subject. specifically: it doesn't need to happen. now if someone was to start a "fixing elemental combat spells" thread, and make the statement that they are not worth the drain? that i would agree with.

Cheops: No you have the wrong of it. I kinda wish you didn't, but the way the rules for SPLITTING ALL DICE POOLS ARE THUS.

Take the base attribute + modified skill. Split it. THEN apply dice pool bonus/penalty to each pool independantly.


That's how it's done for dual wielding pistols, that's how it's done for multi-attacking in melee (arsenal), that's how it's done for magic.


You also don't seem to realize the mage can only cast once per pass (unless multicasting as above). And is not taking drain ONLY 25% of the time.... I hope those spells work cause otherwise the mage is going to need serious medical treatment after this.

Also AR, SMG, etc. it doesn't matter... 2 simple actions, one long wide, and one short wide burst... target is almost guaranteed to get hit and soak damage w/o inflicting any drain on the user. Magic is not the tool of choice for doing raw damage. Normal mundane weapons are. Really... you really want to get nasty, 2 simple actions, fire 2 grenades!

So sorry, none of your uninformed arguments carry much water at all with me.


I'm with Jaid on this one. The bigger problem is that indirect have obscene drain which renders them unusable most of the time. Not that direct spells have a problem compared to everything else in the game.

For what it's worth, I'll post the houserules my team enforces on direct combat spells. As always, opinions are always welcome.

1) Direct combat spells, like virtually every other source of damage in the game, have a separate damage resistance roll after the spell resistance roll. So if someone hits you with a mana bolt, you get an opposed willpower+counterspelling test to see if the spell affects you and it's number of net hits, then you get a body test to reduce the damage.

2) Direct combat spells have +2 Drain. This makes it so a powerbolt/ball costs the same as a lightningbolt/ball. They both have advantages, and most direct spells will still be cheaper than indirect spells.

Note that we do allow indirect without elemental effects, if you must have cheap physical damage spells. The idea is that spells should be powerful, but blowing up someones head should always carry a high risk. We want magic to be used more creatively. Guns allready kill people fine, we want our mages to think their way past problems.

Excuse me for not knowing a rule that isn't printed in the SR4A book. So now my mage has 14/14 dice to throw at his target(s).

So lets see. Elf with max Agi, 20 quality to boost Agi, genengineering to boos Agi, that gives him 9 agi so 13 max augmented. Let's give him Assault Rifles 6 (Ares Alpha) with enough augmentations to give him the full pool again. So we are looking at 29 dice to shoot. Is that fair? So he has an Ares Alpha with I what I guess is possible to achieve 8 RC and to be fair a scope. So in the end no recoil. Pretty sick. Also note that I didn't use an Adept because that would be Magic and thus negating the Mundane solution.

Let's drop the Elf into a barren field facing off against a Tir Ghost at maximum range. Now do the same with a mage in a completely different barren field. Let's give both runners the initiative. Elf shoots at Ghost who chooses to dodge because he can against this attack. Without crunching the Binomial Distributions and taking the expected rolls: Elf gets 10 and Ghost gets 4. Net 6 successes. 1st attack does 17P and the Ghost resists 5 for 12P. Ugh that actually drops him.

Mage goes and gets 5 successes while Ghost gets 2 for net 3. That's 13S. Ghost goes down and Mage takes 2P. Oh but the mage could also be less risky and do 2*Force 6 for 14/14 attack and a piddly 3S/3S drain. That would still give him 9+9 = 18 damage for very little harm to mage.

Now let's do the same with 2 Ghosts in each plains. Elf shoots second target at a -2 mod and gets 9 successes. Target doesn't full dodge and thus only gets 2 successes. Net is 15P target again soaking 5. 10P. The target still stands. He shoots back with 15-3 = 12 dice. Not a bad chance of doing some harm. Could also burst fire if he wanted -- only problem is at put you at max range to make it fair to the Elf (since mage is limited to LoS). Also could have some drugs to resist pain.

Mage dealing with 2 Ghosts. Drops 2 Stunbolts, 1 on each, doing 13S to each. Drops both taking 4P. What are the odds that the Ghost's 12 die attack does 4 boxes? Pretty darn good. Could also Stunball them.

Let's do the same thing but with a cybered out troll tank. I have seen 14 passive dodge with 35 damage resist. First burst does 5 net successes for 16P. Total damage = 4P. Second burst does 17P for 5P. So that's 9 boxes. Troll shoots with Panther Assault Cannon at about 9 dice. It's full auto so he does a full wide burst reducing giving you -9 dodge. You take 10+hitsP at a -5 to your Armor. Mage laughs at Troll who takes at the least 26S and 3P drain (although he probably only needs 1 spell).

Lets do as many ghosts as can fit in a 10m radius area. Elf is now using Heavy Weapons which is no where near as good so skill 4 + spec + doubled pool = 25 dice (so not really that far off but this is much more unlikely). I know for a fact that you cannot target the ground if you wish to hit enemies so you must pick the one in the middle and roll against him. Doesn't matter since there is no scatter and you are using airburst with Sensor 6. You get 8 successes minus 4 for full dodge (their mommas didn't raise no fools). Hurrah! You hit for either 12P(f) or 10P. First one is resisted with 19 for 6P the second by 12 for 6P. They all fall down and shoot you back with 13/12 dice each. Oh and since they all have Full Body Armor I don't think it is too unreasonable to give them chemical protection rendering gas grenades moot.

Mage lays down 1 Stunball 10. Gets them all in 1 go unless they have a mage in the party. But if they have a mage in the party then Elf Sam is fucked because he lays down a Stunbolt. Also the mage could expand 2*Force 5 Stunballs to cover 10m with 9/9 dice and 4S/4S (with only 6/6 dice to resist drain?). So he takes 4S to not die.

All of this naturally changes in a group setting but the fact remains that unless you a) disallow/houserule DC spells, b) disallow magic, or c) "remove" magic by always having 6+focus counterspelling and Mana Static 6 you are not going to be able to challenge the mage without TPK. This is the same problem that people have been complaining about with Possession. Magic is powerful enough that out of the box it is hard to challenge the mage without 1) killing the party, or 2) making up totally contrived scenarios. Heaven help us if this is a Channeling Possession mage. Ugh.

By the by my mage could also reasonably have 8 dice to shoot with a mundane pistol/smg/assault rifle or whatever he wants. Also in a run setting the Sam doesn't always get to have his nifty Ares Alpha.

Honestly they had the Formula at least partially right in 4A when they increased drain for each net hit used. It helped to mitigate it somewhat. Gets rid of the small DC ping effect at the very least.

PS. I think I forgot some ex-ex in there somewhere. It is late, hot, and I'm tired. Goodnight!

step 1: fire frag grenade. as most people who play shadowrun can tell you, a frag grenade works by propelling large quantities of small pointy objects over an area. this tends to break chemical seals. assuming the target even has them. (which is a bit silly... who exactly are you fighting that routinely issues chemical sealed suits to all their guards?).

step 2: fire chemical grenade. the seals are already breached, so the chemical works as normal, possibly stacking with any previous damage dealt by the grenade.

not that this proves much of anything... the proposed scenario (bunch of guards in a huge open field with no cover) is hardly the standard for shadowrun. much more likely is a hallway 4 meters across where chunky salsa will turn the guards into chunky salsa.

also, the mage dealing with 2 ghosts with 2 bolts is going to have to divide his casting dicepool iirc, and is going to be sucking up 4P per spell (+2 per spell cast with a complex action) making it 8P he just sucked down. assuming he also managed to successfully cast both spells, given he's putting a much smaller dicepool against the ghost's resist pool.

and once again, i don't buy your chemical sealed armor argument. let's go take a look through all the published NPCs. how many of them have any sort of armor modifications at all? you're telling me it's reasonable to expect fully chem-sealed armor on every target you face?

sure, occasionally the direct combat spell will have an advantage. it should. the mage is punching himself in the face with knuckle dusters every time he casts it. being advantageous in one situation is not broken. particularly when you consider the fact that shooting people with guns instead of spells has advantages in other situations, such as the previously mentioned fact that the mage has to eat drain.

now don't get me wrong... if it comes down to it, i expect the mage to suck it up and take some drain, if push comes to shove. but when you have choice A that leaves the mage in tip-top condition (so that he can summon a force 8 spirit when you actually need it, like when the security team gets it's set of three force 4 spirits as backup) and choice B that leaves the mage half-dead when you really need it, well... suck it up, spend a few nuyen, and kill people the old-fashioned way. if it gets really grim, then yes... i do expect the mage to pull out all the stops and risk drain. but dealing with a pair of guards is not that situation. if you do get a huge group of highly-trained military special forces chasing you through open terrain and you somehow have the initiative, well fine then... drop that stunball. that's a good use of resources. of course, at that point, you're already screwed, because there's probably all kinds of drones and attack vehicles coming at you from every direction. come to think of it... at this point, forget about the mage. keep the mage in reserve; send out the face. you don't need to knock these people out, you need to convince the entire organisation you represent that they should be doing something else. and if you do send the mage, then forget about the combat spells. those aren't going to do you any good. it's time to start talking about mass use of influence, or better yet, invisibility (in combination with at least 1 high-force spirit using concealment on you). you don't wanna fight that team of tir ghosts... you just wanna get outta there.

so yeah... i'm still not seeing the problem. yeah, the mage might knock out more people (but then again, so might the samurai) before you all get torn apart by sniper rifle fire from who knows where, but who cares? in both situations, you're still dead.

I can concede the point about chemseals on the Ghosts. None of the published NPCs have armor modifications but I was using (apart from the troll) grunts which are universally regarded as pretty bad design (see Toturi's arguments). I'm also not sure RAW that the frag grenade thing works -- so that one would be GM fiat (which is really important in an actual game). I can also concede the clump thing but if you spread them out it onlly further reinforces the superiority of the mage. Let's say there's 10 Ghosts even distributed throughout the "clump". That's 31.4 m^2 per Ghost giving each guy a lot of spacing. Sam is even less likely to injure the outliers while the mage still KOs all of them equally.

Also did you see the accusations against me about dice pool splitting. People were saying I fail and that I don't know the rules because I underestimated how many dice he should be throwing. The sample mage I was using could ditch the spell focus 5, take power focus 4 instead (and be vastly better at all his other utility), shapechange into an eagle, and drop 3 Force 5 Stunbolts a Turn at 9/9/9 for 4S/4S/4S from 1 km away.

You're also forgetting that the mage can already have summoned the Force 8 spirit earlier and have him on standby.

Finally we are looking at Direct Combat spells in isolation. Mages have so many tricks. Many more than the poor, gun wielding Sam. Aforementioned bald eagle flying high. Fly on the wall. Improved Invis. Concealment.

As I said in a group situation there are all sorts of variables. The OP said that DC spells are overpowered, and all the ostriches said "nu-uh...here's why" and repeated the same lame excuses (not directed at you Jaid since you tend to be a little more civil in these conversations). So the statement arose that Physical Combat can do just as much as DC spells. To which I said DC spells are just as effective. So to answer this question it is best to put the two in isolation and see how they stack up. The mage holds his own compared to the Sam and I gave the Sam a pretty big benefit of the doubt (someone please give me a build where you have 29 dice for assault rifles and 25 dice for heavy weapons).

Final note, something that always get ignored when people say Sams do just as much damage. The mage is alway facing a full security force with a full range of measures to counteract him. How in the Fuck does the Sam get his assault rifle with underbarrel grenade launcher into such a high security facility?

By breaking in?
...
...
...
Because they're shadowrunners?

LOL! You are 100% correct. Direct Combat spells are not broken and don't need to be fixed. Technomancers FTW!!!

/thread
//facepalm

sure. like i said, mages can do all kinds of other stuff that is incredibly powerful. but the fact that the mage can turn into an eagle is not relevant. the mage could turn into an eagle, pick up a bunch of grenades, and drop those on the goons. it isn't especially different from stunballing them really.

about the chemseal: it's not GM fiat.


it's a real, legitimate rule. chem seal + damage = no chem seal.

No, it just demonstrates that you don't understand the rules you're railing against nearly as well as you claim you do. And the text in question doesn't just show up now in SR4a, it was present in SR4 as well.

If I see someone making a post and making all sorts of charges, and then doesn't have the rules down correctly. Like many others I'm more prone to disregard what the poster has to say.

The rules capping pools are an optional suggestion. I suggest limiting each split pool to the size of it's split if you're doing it that way.

I originally argued against Muspellsheimr when he pointed this out as well. I agreed on the dual pistol/smg case as that's rather explicit. But argued against it in all other cases as it didn't seem a reading I liked either. But I have to admit honestly when someone has the better argument, and when I logically apply the steps as written, come to the same conclusion.

And again, I'm firmly with Jaid here... casting 3 stunballs a round... chances are you're taking 2-4 drain from that... good luck doing that 3 or 4 passes in a row. Assuming a drain pool of 10... you're going to be feeling that. If it's higher than 10... then that character has had a lot of karma come to it (rank 6 wil, other drain stat is 30 karma each).

And that force 8... unless you have magic8... that's physical drain (and a lot of it)... you'll be in no condition to fight by the time sunrise/sunset comes around and the spirit goes off to do it's own thing again. Binding it... I hope your beneficiaries enjoy their life insurance windfall. That's not happening without major drain pool enhancements and high initiate grade stuff like centering. Again, implying a high grade magical initiate.

You continually make these weak arguments w/o thinking through the implications. Quite frankly, it strikes me as a lot of theory crafting by someone who hasn't actively played mages.

@Jaid: Thanks for the clarification on the Chem Seal. That would be the way to do it. Course you need an SA grenade launcher or a moded Ares Alpha but that is good. I will keep it in mind for future encounters.

You're right about the eagle. It is irrelevant but it can allow me to level the playing field so that both the mage and sam can go before the Ghosts (sam due to reflexes, mage due to surprise). I would also point out that the eagle mage probably isn't dropping grenades onto them -- darn lack of opposable thumbs/manual dexterity.

@Falconer: This reply is tough because I am at work currently and can't reference my books.

First off: yes it is theorycrafting. We can construct unlimited scenarios where Direct Combat spells are both broken and not broken compared to regular weapons. To test to see if the rule is broken however we need to control the test and isolate the rule. Hence why all my examples occured on a barren plain within LOS and within gun range. I could also construct tons of scenarios where gunfire is a horrible idea and only magic will work -- one example would be my point that the Sam can't reliably sneak the assault rifle into a facility by himself whereas a mage always has his magic with him. That is irrelevant however.

I also didn't like Muspellsheimer's interpretation of how dice pools split. The books unfortunately don't give any interpretation. I'd be more inclined to do it my original way (which I was told off for doing) which was total the pool and then divide. Again, since the book is so cloudy on the subject it is up to individuals. Either way of doing it however direct combat spells are just as good or better. (with the obvious exception of non-living targets)

Let's see about the Stunballs. First off the SR4A rules do not make any mention of what happens to your Drain Resistance Pool except that you must resist drain individually. This means that you get your full pool against each unless you take a different interpretation (and that btw makes multi-casting valueless). In fact I would say that full pool is RAI since the penalty for multi-casting is +1 Drain Value per each spell. Secondly 11 is well within the bounds of starting characters. Both Dwarf and Elf can do it without breaking a sweat (elves hit 12). Everyone else can easily surpass that with a -1 die reduction in Spellcasting (1 point magic loss) in exchange for 1+ dice of drain resistance. Also there are numerous drugs that increase mental stats -- any combination of which can be popped before a run to increase drain pool. I even corrected myself (without anyone catching it) at one point and mentioned that I fucked up and used Magic + Stat and that the drain should be 10 dice.

Yes you will likely run out of Stun boxes eventually and have to stop casting making the gun eventually better. I will say that there are plenty of other ways you can mitigate that stun damage. First aid and sustaining focus (inc willpower) spring to mind. However, they were not relevant to the question of are DC spells broken.

Actually the Force 8 Spirit was thrown out there by one of my detractors as a point against Direct Combat spells. His claim was that my interpretation of DC spells being broken was invalid because after casting them I wouldn't be able to summon a Force 8 spirit to deal with the sudden insertion of a swarm of force 4 spirits. My response to him was that I could have summoned it previously and had it on standby. It is 100% irrelevant to the discussion of whether DC spells are better/worse than physical combat. I fail to see how I am stupid for refuting someone else's idiotic and irrelevant argument. Nice try at the straw man however.

So I'm still not entirely sure what rules I did wrong (apart from maybe some more math problems like I pointed out above). If there is something specific that is not your own personal opinion please point it out. Simply stating I don't know the rules doesn't make it so - give me some evidence as Jaid did.

page 183 where it talks about casting multiple spells states you just split the spellcasting pool (nothing is indicated about modifiers being added before or after; i would assume before personally, since they are part of the pool). you do use your full drain pool, but for each spell beyond the first that you cast with the same complex action, the drain of *all* spells increases by 1. you are also limited to your spellcasting skill value for how many separate spells you can cast, but i don't see that being a major problem.

perhaps of some interest is the fact it doesn't mention needing to give the same dice pool to each spell.

in any case, you do resolve them one after the other (in whatever order the caster prefers) so drain taken may chance the dice pool for the later spells presumably.

as for summoning the spirit before, that's great if you need that kind of spirit. but what if you have a fire spirit and what you need is a spirit of man with influence?

and if you're going to create a theoretical scenario, you ought to take into account a far more likely one than "standing in a featureless plain within range".

far more likely is "standing at opposite ends of a hallway" or "on opposite sides of a parking garage" and so on and so forth.

Again, that was the way I'd started off with splitting my pools because all the mods added seemed to indicate that. I was harangued by other people for "l2p n00b" for doing it that way. I'd prefer that since it means slightly lower pools for each one.

I was accounting for +1 drain per spell in my calculations except that one Stunball set where I accidentally did F/2-1 instead of F/2. Since Direct Combat spells have such low drain you can multi-cast them quite effectively.

I also noticed that it doesn't say equally divide the pool but didn't want to get flammed for suggesting the possibility.

Again, the only reason I mentioned a spirit is because someone else brought it up as "proof" that my suggestions wouldnt work. I personally would never have mentioned it but someone else brought it up so I had to refute the point. It is largely moot.

Sure I could base the theory in a parking lot but it would still be a featureless parking garage. We are trying to isolate the mechanics of the game. It is similar to how a Physicist always posits theories in a vacuum. We don't want any other complications interfering with our test. We are not looking at a "realistic game situation" we are looking at "is method a the same as method b."

and then physicists wind up getting an answer that only works in a vaccuum. they need to start putting other things into the vaccuum to get a result. to find out if light reflects/refracts/diffracts, a vacuum isn't enough. you need a vaccuum with appropriate materials in it, such as a piece of glass, or a very small hole, and a source of light.

you can't just separate out the situations the spells will be used in. if i have 2 jets, 1 with a parachute behind it, the other without, and i ask the physicist which one goes faster, he's not going to tell me the answer assuming a vaccuum. he's going to tell me that the cross-sectional area of the parachute is going to create greater resistance, and that (assuming the chute does not break) the jet with no chute will go faster, given the same amount of applied force from factors other than the chute.

On Multi-casting:

Why dice pool mods are added after the split. Lets say one target is in plain view and the other is standing in a BGC 2 mana static. (-2 dice visibility penalty astral perception, -2 force; or maybe one is in your aspected count for positive dice and the other outside).

The other reason is then you end up adding a special case to the rules. Generally things work better when the rules are applied uniformly.
Dual wielding ranged weapons uses this mechanic, (p150, "Split the pool BEFORE applying modifiers")
Attacking multiple targets w/ a melee attack uses this mechanic.
Now spells don't use this mechanic?

The reason I suggested capping the pools at the split value is fairly simple, it's fully within the spirit of the optional rule for capping dice. Lets say 12 dice... a 2 way split is 6 dice each way. The sources of mods are quickly, specializations, mentor spirit, spellcasting/power focus, aid sorcery bound ally/spirit, BGC's, visibility, wound penalties.... This limits the dice rolled to 12 (or 8 on a 3 way split), (or 6 on a 4 way split). In order to get substantially more dice, you need max spellcasting and initiate grades for higher magic scores. It quickly prevents someone from having 4 dice focus, 4 dice aid sorcery, 2 dice spec, and 2 dice mentor... for +12 dice despite only devoting 3 dice to the attack from the base pool.



Cheops:
I'd suggest you avoid leveling charges of straw man unless you realize what one is.

I was EXPLICITLY CRITICIZING your flippant remark, just summon it in advance. This is a high risk play, as the spirit will ONLY BE AROUND FOR A FEW HOURS (dawn/dusk). Unless this is a high grade initiate mage w/ a lot of karma and high magic, this is a non-trivial act and a reasonably good chance of laying the mage up in the hospital or in need of serious medical care, AND IN NO SHAPE TO GO ON A SHADOWRUN. The ONLY way this is viable is if you have a magic score of 8... so the drain is stun... because then you can sleep it off in an hour or two after first aid.

Also, drain isn't as cuddly as you think it is... don't forget the -1 per 3 box penalty.

I heavily suggest you take some time playing a mage before arguing this. Just invoking the optional rule, increasing drain by net hits applied to increase damage does a lot to limit direct spells. (force 5... generally you'd expect 2-3 net hits increasing the damage by 50%... however, now that's something you'll think twice on because of the drain). Splitting the pool to multi-attack means twice as many dice resisting damage (even more problematic if counterspelling/magical guard is in play) so it's a riskier method to increase damage. (and a bound spirit who's service is provide counterspelling to the site security personnel, isn't all that expensive).

Okay, since you seem very interested in this propose to me a theoretical situation that is "realistic" and that doesn't give any advantages to one mechanic over the other. Your parachute example is a good one because you are pretty close to exactly the same situation for both jets with the exception of the parachute. If the non-parachute one flies one route and then 5 mins later the one with the parachute flies the exact same route with no atmospheric changes then you essentially have the same situation as 2 runners in 2 barren plains. So come up with a situation that doesn't bias the rules test towards one mechanic or another.

@Falconer: I am starting to get really tired of repeating this. I originally went with the exact same method you just rehashed when I first entered this discussion. Muspellheimer came in and trolled me and you continue to do the same.



Sorry moderators, I edited my own post to correct a mistake I noticed and acknowledged earlier in the "debate" so that we don't argue about that instead of the real topics.





So wait!!! You just totally changed your interpretation of the rules in what 5 posts? Reported for Trolling. I think that one is wrapped up.

I am also tired of saying that the spirit was an irrelevant argument that someone else levelled at me as a reason why DC spells aren't broken.



Emphasis added by me to highlight. Sorry moderators, I know you hate it when we edit other people's posts but I felt the need.

I did point out that I liked the optional rule to increase Drain by net hits used and was disappointed that they made it optional.



So if I follow you on the optional dice pool limit of 20 what you are saying is that you look at the pool before splitting and cap it at 20. then you take Mag + Spell and divide by spells to get your base. Then you add in the modifiers from the other stuff? Look at my quote #45 above. My spellcasting pool IS 20 dice unsplit. So I abide by that optional rule. And I still end up with 14/14 dice on a 2 way split, 12/12/12 on a 3 way split, and 11/11/11/11 on a 4 way split and that is with rounding working very brutally against me.

Edited: to add in quotes and last bit for extra fail.

I suspect that's because, in a vacuum, neither jet is going to fly at all. They will either crash into whatever gravity pulls them towards, or, lacking strong gravity, kinda float for a bit. Not that the pilots would have time to get bored, I suspect the cockpits would explosively decompress. I heard once that a human lasts 12 seconds in a vacuum, but maybe that was an urban legend.
EDIT: I'm sorry, I have a habit of trying to turn my point into a comical comment and hoping people will understand anyway. Allow me to clarify. My point is, it would useless to give an example of circumstances where the phenomenon you're trying to test doesn't apply, such as flying jets in a vacuum. Cheops' example illustrates what he feels to be the core of the argument, but there will always be some circumstances (such as chunky salsa) that could be applied differently. Nevertheless, I think it's an acceptable example of what he's trying to prove.

This discussion: cheops is tryin' his best here. I'm inclined to say "cut him some slack," if only because I'm impressed by how tirelessly he's persevering. I personally agree with his point, but I'm comfortable chalking it up to the "it takes magic to counter magic" phenomenon; that said, I dislike that phenomenon immensely, because, as many people say about possession mages, the GM's options become 1. include a disbelief-stretchingly specialized response against the mage, 2. overwhelm the mage and risk TPK, or 3. throw an average level of security with little or no magical backup at the runners, and watch their brains melt out.

Actually fixing direct combat spells: my advice is to use two of the three possibilities. 1: use the rule where net hits increase drain on a 1:1 basis. 2: give mundanes a second pool against DC spells, like Intuition, and have Counterspelling just become a teamwork test (i.e. the mage's counterspelling hits are dice added to the spell resistance pool) or allow it to substitute for the lower of the two statistics. 3: bring direct combat spells into line with other damaging mechanics by allowing both a roll to resist, and one to soak.

First of all: Thank you! It is nice to know that I am not 100% alone! (although I am not trying to drag you onto my side so no one please attack him for it!) Maybe now we can get this back onto the OP's topic?

I agree with 3 as a very good solution. It gets rid of an extraneous sub-system and replaces it with an already existing system. The only thing you'd have to test is whether the reduced Drain Value on DC spells is not over-compensating for the loss of the elemental effects of IC spells.

I have already expressed an opinion on 1 but would not combine it with 2 or 3.

I agree in principal with 2 but would allow counterspelling to apply in full since IC spells now get Counterspelling as well (added to Reaction dodge test in SR4A). So Willpower + Counterspelling then maybe Willpower + Charisma (as a representation of force of will -- see Composure tests p. 138 but no Guts +ve quality).

No Cheops... you're the problem troll if that's your way of arguing things is by making weak ad hominems, false accusations, namecalling, and not understanding the proper use of terms like straw man.


I just said the exact same thing in a slightly different manner in two seperate posts. And you accuse me of completely changing my assertion.

There are two classes of things which affect the dice after base skill & attribute... Skill Modifiers (modified skill, limited to 1.5X skill rank), and dice pool modifiers (subject to optional caps, including situational modifiers). One is added after the split, the other isn't.


Quite frankly, I don't care what you think or if you report me to the moderators. I stick by my guns on what I say. If you can't deal w/ a no nonsense type of poster like me, that's your problem, not the board's. I haven't made any posts here which I think I need to worry about.


My only reason for posting is because you seem to have very little firsthand experience with what you're talking about and trying to correct what I feel you have wrong. You don't seem to realize exactly how much magic has changed since SR1 -> 2 -> 3 and how much weaker it is now than ever.

Quite frankly, none of McAllisters suggestions are any good. And are yet another overnerfing... let me give myself a massive headache... just to have the other side resist it all. Screw it, I'm just drawing a pistol/shotgun/grenade.... Even a mage can hit things when he starts spraying lead in wide bursts. (also using a gun, avoids the whole 'geek the mage' problem which tends to arise anytime the mage does use magic).

The bigger problem tends to be that people A. don't read the rules. B. don't understand/apply the ones they do correctly. Then allow things like the possession mage to get away with murder (not forcing him to use up his services, etc.). Or allow the possession mage to stack ItNW when by the hard text of the rules it clearly doesn't... simply because 'it makes sense'. (as much as anything magic makes any sense). This is especially true of newer players. If you insist on using house rules, don't complain when the house rules break the game.

Try actually playing a mage with the enhanced drain as suggested by the optional rule. You'll see it quickly reduces damage quite a bit. The bigger problem is direct combat spells are too weak. To that end I'd suggest putting the counterspelling not on the reaction, but on the damage soak. (they're highly likely to manage to hit, but at the same time counterspelling takes the place of the half-impact reduction).

My view of dealing with magic which is in the spirit of the game is:

More liberal use of background counts. It is perfectly reasonable to have most places with a background count of 1. Higher security areas may have them higher.

Allow for the target affected to soak damage based on willpower or body depending if it is mana or physical based respectively.

Cheops: And thank you for considering my suggestions. I agree that parts of my suggestion to give soak are good; see below.

Falconer: I suspect we have different opinions on the power of magic relative to whatever it's being compared to, but it's true that you've made good arguments for your opinions, and I'll certainly admit that your opinions are almost certainly better informed than mine, in terms of time spent playing a mage. Also, I like the idea of adding counterspelling as soak. Do you think it would make sense to give mundanes something they could default to for soaking? Maybe use the lower of willpower and body, minus 1?

Omenowl: I get the impression that GMs either consider background counts to be cruel punishment, or just forget about them. Increasing their use is probably a good suggestion. Given that geomantic rituals are permanent, I don't think it's unreasonable that any facility with high enough security to have a corpsec mage or two on site would invest in some geomancy, giving the mages on their home ground a point or two of aspected domain.

Omenowl:
That's exactly how my GM handles it... background counts are ubiquitous. And it seems that various groups have them aspected all over the place.

It has a few big impacts... a background count 1... -1 dice astral visibility, -1 dice my magic rating, -1 dice (aid sorcery), and now that we've got a force 5 power focus (I'm so bonding that if I ever get up to 40karma), that's another -1. 1 point of background count then amounts to a 3 point reduction in my spellcasting pool. (-2 more for sustaining increase reflexes). That's -5 dice right there (and I'm not ubertwinked... mag6, spellcasting 4, no specialization, and my mentor helps health not combat spells... so I rely on the force 4 guardian for aid sorcery & aid counterspelling when that comes out... so the dice go from 14 down to 9). Even now that I finally got the cleansing metamagic... that takes valuable combat time to do, and my pool is still only 12. (that on a grade 3 initiate w/ 6 magic).

However similarly, counterspelling can be a !@$!#$!@$#. One 'oh hell' moment the group experienced... got swarmed by bug spirits... most of the spirits had magical guard (soldiers)... the counterspelling was horrendous. After spending the first 2 passes on full defense trying like mad to just stay alive... I managed to get out of the middle and cast an astral stunball force 9... edged up to 9 hits and things STILL RESISTED IT. (that's how badly the counterspelling can stack up, and why adding a second attribute on all tests is probably not a good idea).

It's amazing how just using the negative situation mods makes a big difference. That's the main reason I'm against people stripping them out as the system is heavily reliant on them, and suggest people slowly include the most basic ones (like visibility) then add more and more of them as they learn the system. (trying to do them all at once, is going to slow down most games too much)

Also, some things people don't catch which are very important... the force of the increase wil, must be higher than your natural wilpower to work. If you cast it AT your willpower then enter a background count, the spell no longer works. If you cast it a littler higher, it still works, but the spell still temporarily loses net hits!


Mind you, I'm a reluctant mage. I play it because I'm good at it, and enjoy it. But I'd rather play other character concepts, it's just in my local group. I'm one of the few experienced players, and the group needed a mage, while some of the newer players who wanted to play with magic went with the much simpler adepts to learn.

Hah, good point about foci. Nobody bothers putting Increased Reflexes into a force 5+ focus... at least, not until they walk into a background count and lose 3 IPs.

Also, I hate the fact that counterspelling stacks at all. That would be like if, in the matrix, every IC/spider/agent in the node raised its firewall. I'm not saying quality always beats quantity, but countspelling is the only situation where, if a roomful of people (ok, mages with counterspelling) are looking at you, you have no chance of succeeding.

Counterspelling:
I have zero issues with counterspelling aiding... one of my friends favorite stories to retell involves what happened when they crashed the party on a bunch of ritual mages who were making their life miserable. They came down the elevator, saw the group of 8 a dozen mages... and opened up with shotguns & grenades (even the mage)... there was no point in trying to cast spells (too much counterspelling)... the mages died rather quickly and it shocked the GM who was expecting a massive magical duel (rather than seeing the mages wiped within a few passes).

Really the only time it shows is when A. you're attacking a large group of mages (in which case, your best friend in the world is the street sam or rigger!!!), or B. you get hammered by a large group of spirits with magical guard (in which case, adepts still do well... mage has to edge to make anything work). If they're force 4'ish then a street sam will still be cleaning clocks.

Really think of it like this, if you have two mages with 3 dice each... the aid only adds 1 more dice to the first mage... which in itself barely changes the result from 1 average hit to 1.333 average hit. (you're only going to get +1 hit on average for every 9 dice of aid!!).

This doesn't work for me and I think is a fundamental problem in this discussion. You can isolate the mechanics if you wish, by holding combats in a featureless plain as Cheops did and from that you can work out if two methods are equivalent. But I think this is wrong. The value of a capability in Shadowrun is not only the thing itself, but in how it can be used. Let's compare two identical characters fighting with A armed with a light machine gun and B armed with a Heavy Pistol. Open field scenario: Wow! The LMG is far superior. S do we all think LMGs are overpowered? No - because you can't walk down the street with one or sneak it into a bar, but you can with a pistol. They cost more, they might require additional skills to use.

You can no more separate the circumstantial advantages and disadvantages of magic or firearms from their utility, than you could compare two different skills without reference to what you're trying to achieve.

Cheops' implicit assumption is that direct combat spells and firearms are similar enough that you can do a simple comparison of numbers on them and judge which is best. I strongly disagree with this and support it with a very simple list of just some of the ways they are different:

• Resistance of some opponents to particular sources of damage (e.g. spirits vs. bullets, counter-spelling vs. direct combat spells)
• Suitability to different environments (e.g. areas of background count, vision penalties, underwater, in space, mana barriers)
• Range that combat takes place at
• Availability of method (e.g. ability to smuggle in weapons, enemies awareness / unawareness of active foci)
• Attribute and skill dependencies of method (i.e. are there supporting character requirements for the method, such as requiring the development of an additional attribute)
• Resources required to improve / support method (e.g. 30,000 spellcasting focus vs. 400 smartlink, free vs. ammo cost)
• Karmic or resource investment to improve (e.g. initiation, cost of learning each spell, vs. financial hit of cyberware, etc)
• Impact on other areas of character development in addition to karma / resource hits (e.g. inadvisability of magical character from picking up cheap implants, good return on investment mods such as Wired Reflexes, Bone Lacing, etc).
• Recurrence of need for action (e.g. 2 boxes of drain is ignorable in isolated incident. Becomes a major factor in five consecutive battles).

It's my strong feeling that not only can you not discard such circumstantial factors and "isolate the mechanics" but that nor should you try. The earlier example of killing the Tir Ghost in the field showed both the magician and the mundane quite easily kill the single individual. This illustrates how both methods are very capable of dispatching opposition. What will make the difference in play is not whether either can incapacitate the opponent, but whether the method can be used in the existing circumstances. That's Shadowrun - everyone can kill their opponent in the right circumstances. What matters is whether you can ensure those right circumstances.

I'll put it a different way: If both methods result in an incapacitated opponent, then both methods are functionally equivalent. You don't get points for making them extra dead. Therefore the discussion must focus on the circumstances in which the methods function and to what degree.

And this is not a simple discussion because the PCs are aware of how circumstances affect things and manipulate those circumstances to their benefit.

You can apply a criteria of number vs. number in a game of D&D 4e to some extent because that game has a simply defined arena of play. You can't effectively apply the same process of analysis to Shadowrun because that game has a complex arena of play. In chess, a pawn in the right place at the right time, beats a queen in the wrong place or at the wrong time. And so it is with Shadowrun.

Now we can argue the pros and cons of firearms or direct or indirect combat spells and those arguments can bring in numerical calculations, but trying to reduce the argument to those numerical calculations is doomed.

Those are some of my thoughts on the matter.

On a separate issue, I quite like Muspellheimer's suggestion about Astral Armour.

K.

I kept asking for one and a sample build of a mundane/augmented shootist but no one ever provided one. We'd also have to fully stat out the characters and have an impartial GM run us through to create the responses. It becomes much more complicated. Also I'll point out that it is just as easy to isolate a mechanic in SR as in D&D 4e and that in fact D&D4e becomes more complicated faster than SR. The only thing that complicates analysis in SR is the fact that a lot of people (WotC staff included! -- see skill challenges) don't understand binomial distributions. D&D4e gets complicated because it is more clearly designed for group play and breaks down completely at less than 3 PCs (as in it cannot work -- like how SR4 broke down at 15 dice pools or SR4A at 20+).

You also start bumping into the fact that as you introduce scenarios and full characters instead of "tests in a vacuum" you bump into the fact that Mages can be so very versatile and can do things that the Sam can't even attempt. This can really bias things in the mage's favour and make him seem artificially better than shooting someone with a gun. That's why I try to avoid it.

I agree on your criteria for judging. If both methods result in incapacitating the opposition then they are the same. As such I'd evaluate my examples as thus:

1) individually or against 2 standard opponents the shootist is at a slight advantage he comes out having to suck one dp 9-12 (in case I missed some modifiers) shot against his Reaction + Body + Armor - AP (+Dodge)
2) Against a hard living target (Troll tank) the mage very clearly is on top
3) Against groups of opponents I'm leaning towards the mage but haven't run the numbers for frag/gas

Do you think that a fair assessment of my "flawed" test. Would this serve as a pretty good baseline before moving into scenarios?

@Falconer: I have stated several times now that I like that rule that they introduce and am upset that it is optional. If I run SR again I will likely use it or else switch DC spells to work exactly the same as IC spells (thus removing a subsystem of the rules).

As for me playing a mage I am almost always the GM and dislike using mages because they vastly increase my chances of TPK at very little cost to the group's opposition. I do make liberal use of spirits however and know just how effective they are. I also have the benefit that, except for one player (no longer playing in our group), my group isn't generally as inventive as I am. I don't think any of them are even aware of multi-casting and probably have forgotten about AoE reductions/increases.

Maybe you should run a game here on the forums and show me how it is done?

@Omenowl: I admit to not using very many Background Counts as I've played my worlds with fairly less magic and have kind of viewed background counts as anti-magic zone nerfs to the mage. I will start including more of them now and see what effect it has on the game.

I love Background Counts, of course my players hate them with a passion.

Personaly I like the fact that Direct Combat Spells got nerfed, but I think I'd rather have seen net hits not having any effect as opposed to increasing Drain, still, it gets the job done and I too am sad to see the rule made optional, tis a sad thing when the devs decide to show their yellow bellies over something that needed done.

Nor will anyone. It's a false test, like demanding someone answer whether they've stopped sleeping with their horse. Damned if they say yes, damned if they say no. To save repeating myself, I'll cover this later.



The point I'm making very strongly is not that you can't isolate the mechanic, but that it is very, very inappropriate to do so. When I mentioned D&D 4e it was explicitly drawing a different comparison - not that it was easier to isolate this mechanic but that it was more appropriate to do so. A D&D game is very focused on combat in a defined arena with controlled circumstances. Whether or not it is easier for a wizard to smuggle his spellbook into a dungeon than the barbarian her axe is very seldom a factor in D&D 4e. In Shadowrun, it is critical. Thus it is possible to isolate a particular aspect of a mechanic for comparison in D&D 4e more usefully than it is in Shadowrun. This was pretty much the entire point of my post, belaboured at great length.



Well the mage needs a few things in his favour because damage for damage, especially over a series of combats, magic inflicts less pain as a rule than mundane firepower in a lot of circumstances.



The advantage against hard armoured targets is usually a clear one. Obviously there are scenarios where this will not be the case. If there is decent counter-magic then the magician is at a greater disadvantage against the hard-armoured target than the samurai because the magician will have to full back to mundane weapons and the samurai will almost inevitably much better with them than the magician.

The other two scenarios might be as you say in isolation, but both factors are much smaller than some of the big factors that can come along in specific circumstances. For example, you list the mage as being better against groups of opponents. This can be true (of course) but if the opponents are in a confined space, then area weapons such as a very cheap HE grenade are staggeringly lethal and have no drain risk. Similarly if the group of opponents were drones it could make a significant difference. If the opponents were all well-armoured, then a magician with Stun ball could be far superior to a samurai with a assault rifle. As regards your number (1), this can be true in the right circumstances. But what if it's the fifth such opponent the magician has faced? Five boxes of drain accumulated over five combats is significant. This is where I'm coming from. Isolated exercises pale into insignificance against circumstantial factors. And Shadowrun is a game of playing with those factors. It's what any intelligent PC or NPC does.



Heh! I can identify with that. I have trouble avoiding a TPK with gangers sometimes. Or I did recently. Anyway, I want to clarify that I'm having a friendly discussion here. I'm not out to have a big row. Magic is very powerful. There's no doubt about that. And I think because the counters and factors affecting it are initially less obvious than the factors affecting mundane weaponry, it may appear more deadly at first. And in a lot of circumstances it is. But in other circumstances it isn't. That's where I'm coming from in this debate. I can give you a samurai character that will snipe nearly anyone you like to death. I can give you one that can take down helicopters. I can give you one kills dozens of people in a single Combat Turn with careful use of grenades. And there's no reason I can't give you a samurai that will do all three pretty well. Similarly, I can give you a magician that can do any of those things (though the helicopter will be significantly harder to pull off and he'll be less of a good all-rounder). But I'll play both of them in different ways and I'll be looking for different circumstances as I play each of them. A good Shadowrunning team will cover all their basis with magic and mundane and hacker characters. So long as the circumstances that they encounter are various, then they'll each have their own role to play and (player inventiveness aside) none should be "out-performing" others, because they'll be doing differently well in different scenarios.



On a personal note, I dislike using background counts. I see them as a stick used to beat players that do too well. They only really show up in my game when there's a real reason for it - invading a magician's stronghold, etc. They have their place, but if you rely on them as a GM, then I think you're compensating for an inability to handle mages.

These are my thoughts, anyway,

Peace,

K.

*chuckles* funny you should mention, I've talked to a few GMs who admit their inability to handle mages. I'm not trying to make a point, it's just amusing how the perspective is different.

So, Knasser, you've convinced me that it's not particularly worthwhile to compare abilities in isolation. Do you suggest we compare them in a less-isolated scenario, or do you suggest that we simply don't compare them? Or is there a third option that cometh not to my mind?

P.S. "mages" isn't a word, but "cometh" is? C'mon, spellcheck. Get a life.

I have to partially disagree knasser, although it is possible, perhaps even alittle too easy for DMs to abuse Background Counts, especially aspected ones, I believe that part of the reason magic was designed to be as verisible and powerful as it is is that it was calibriated with the negitive modifers in mind, just as the firearm rules were designed with their negitive modifers in mind, ect, ect...

First off sorry if I jumped down your throat. After being beat on for a while in threads it can make all a person's responses seem hostile. I don't have a problem with you or necessarily what you are saying.

My contention, which I may have muddled with confused terms, is not that a Sam is not useful compared to a mage but that DC spells are as good or better than shooting someone with a gun. This arose from someone claiming the opposite was true full stop. This is the reason why I was trying to isolate the RULE.

We can debate who is more useful as a class (because really that is what they are) until we are blue in the face. And honestly, in what is supposed to be a team game, each one contributes in their own way. The only mages I have ever played actually focus on Detection and Manipulation with a token DC spell for those times where "zomg! my 8 dice in pistols can't save me!" A single clairvoyance spell is often FAR more useful than any arbitrary number of DC spells or guns. And honestly the only thing keeping Spirits from being broken is that their Drain mechanic is actally punitive compared to DC spells.

re: D&D 4e I am willing to open a thread in General if people want to discuss its merits/flaws. It is actually a very complex game that allows the players/GM to tell a very good story. In fact since combat isn't over in 3-9 seconds like SR it can allow for some very cinematic fight scenes ala Exalted or Earthdawn. Anyway /tangent.

re: Background counts. That's how I've felt about it too.

@Ravor: I am possibly going to be running a game soon and I am more inclined to try more BCs because it seems to be the main point of "the other side of the fence." I have tendency to, if they do show up in a game, be feng shui'd to be aspected to the corp mages. Guilty as charged.

Not sure yet since I am also contemplating a hard cap of 12 on dice pools at character creation.

Background counts should be appropriate to the situation, but most places have 1 as a background count. So not so much a nerf as following the recommendations given in street magic.

Reviewing the SR4 rules for them I'm not convinced this is the way to go to hamper DC spells. First of all Mana Ebbs are not permanent things (SM, 120) and Domains can be aspected towards traditions. In the latter case this is horrible since it make the Mage better if the appropriate tradition since it enhances their ability. Geomancy (SM, 56) is fairly easy to pull off except in the biggest Domains and means that any corporate site that hosts a domain will have enchanced security mages.

Furthermore, both ebbs and domains hinder adepts so in order to slightly hinder the team mage I am probably crippling the Adept.

I think that a rules route is probably the best way to go...

Actually no not really. The key is to keep the back ground count low. 1 point is generally enough... it takes 1 point off the mage (2 if he's astrally percieving), 1 point off the focus, 1 point off the aid sorcery (and by extension off his spirits). You can see that quickly adds up cutting into a twinked dicepool.

Adepts lose 1PP worth of abilites... but generally this isn't crippling. Especially if you let the adept pick which ones... or roll an edge(1) test to figure out which powers didn't make it (if you really want to go random). If the adept has something like astral perception, that's normally the first thing to go.


Only aspect the domain when it actually is suited. And it's not necessarily aspected towards a tradition a PC can use. (EG: a toxic or blood mage aspect.... or aspect the graveyard towards undead... there's a bit of flexibility in there).


To address one other point I saw brought up repeatedly... firearms vs. spells.
Forget multicasting, that requires splitting pools and gets rather messy. Firearms attack twice per round (2x simple, vs 1x complex). They're another case of attribute + skill + bonii vs. a single attribute (reaction, which further gets reduced by -1 for each iterative making focus fire deadly and things like wide bursts reduce it further).

Yes they get a soak, but unlike a spell which only attacks once at full pool, they attack twice at full dice pool.



And just to explain why (I'm trying to avoid beating a dead horse, but your examples are a good reason of why this isn't quite right as all of them involve a single spell school w/ an ultra-specialized mage). (generally I prefer to get a +2 to two schools over a +4 to one).
If we have have a mage who multi-casts a combat spell, an illusion spell, and a manpulation spell (say stunbolt, invisibility, and levitation because he's about to hide on the ceiling). (all examples so far this thread have involved a twinked out mage with a pure specialization casting nothing but his specialization).

Now we hit the case where, the combat focus only adds dice after the split to the combat spell, his manipulation specialization (and mentor spirit) only apply to the levitate, and the invis is sitting only at base split pool. And then things like visibility penalties would apply to the combat spell (as well as background count). While visibility wouldn't matter for the self-buffs, the background count would (and is tripled as you need to add it to each test invidivually!). That is the purest example I can think of why bonuses and penalties are added after the pool split.

Well Street Magic does actually explicitly say that the Adept is allowed to select his own powers. At my table I've never seen an Adept that can lose that 1 point and feel at all willing to go through with the job. But again that is my experience and mileage my vary.

The problem with Aspecting is as I said -- if it occurs in corporate territory it is going to be aspected towards that corporation. So when my runners break into that corp facility in a world where there are lots of Background Counts of 1 it means my PCs get weaker and my NPCs get stronger and P(TPK) approaches 1. Naturally if it is somewhere that doesn't make sense then I won't aspect it.

Shooting isn't always at full pool on the second shot -- see Recoil. Yes this can be reduced, yes it you can shoot SA. However, your really big damagers cause a lot of recoil or are Complex.

Visibility is a max penalty of -3 to a Shadowrunner in any conditions. Usually it will be 0 or -1. These same penalties also apply to the shootist and hence why I ignored them.

Here's a sample that is very easy to do:

Magic 5 + Spellcasting 5 + manip 2 (mentor) + combat spec 2
Power Focus 4

Wants to do Stunbolt, invis, and levitate all at Force 5. If get how you are saying we should split the pool as 5+5 = 10 /3 = 3 + 4 =7 base. Now he is at 9/9/7 to cast his three spells. Lets be conservative and say he only gets 10 dice to resist drain. His drain is 4S/5S/6S. That last one hurts but he is probably getting away from the encounter and is still only taking stun damage (unless he doesn't roll 5 successes on 30 dice -- can happen). I would assume that sine he is running away the opposition is far too tough to be able to just 2*Force 5 Stunball them away. Did I do all those splits correctly according to Falconer?

I will point out that a mage who is Manipulation spec and is tryng to get away will be better served by turning into an Antelope or a Kangaroo and making his escape that way? (I'd go Antelope since you are then going up body instead of down) At that point he is going 100m / 3 seconds at a run which is the equivalent of 10 hits on a force 10 levitate or 20 hits on a force 5. Another great option is to turn into an Eagle (I seem to keep pointing that one out -- must be REALLY good) in which case you are Flying at 80m/3 seconds but only if the GM is one that allows you to use critter movement modes (which they really should). This way has the benefit that unless the opposition actively counterspells you you only have to cast the spell at piddling force (like 2 or 3).

Of course this is causing the topic to drift again and is getting into the realm of "Magic is broken in general" not "Direct Combat spells in specific are broken." With just a slight hint of "Restricted Gear is game breaking."

Odds are the shadowrunners wouldn't know if the area has a background count until they get into the facility. It also makes metamagic like filtering worth getting. The more and harder choices players get for advancement the better.

You know, I get really tired when people complain about the various things that make their job harder, yes Background Counts screw Adepts over almost as hard if not harder than they do Mages, but thems the breaks, sometimes shit happens and the measure of a true Runner is whether or not they pick themselves up by the bootstraps and get the fragging job done anyways.

which is exactly what i've been trying to say all along. i'm not worried about manabolt or stunball. that can be dealt with, in much the same way as the sam shooting people and killing them can be dealt with.

in contrast, it's much harder to work around a sam who essentially can't be detected when sneaking around, or a magician who uses influence to make the security guards open the doors for you since (in their head at least) it's their job.

Whoa dawg, I don't think 1 magic either way is going to approach TPK. Just go with the assumption that, unless you're going somewhere REALLY REALLY secure (like, trying to slot Damien Knight, or break into Evo's Martian base) most corpsec mages are going to have magic of 3, 2 if they have some cyberware (which many will). So a background count of 1 or 2 will put them maybe a bit above the party's mage(s) Magic score, but the party's mage(s) will probably still have better skills, and magicians are easily countered with bullets.

Thing is I don't think the OP is too worried about Adepts and this likely affects the Adept more than the Mage. Yes they do have to suck it up but it is kind of annoying as a PLAYER to know that you are being penalized because someone else is playing a character for whom the rules are too good.

@Omenowl: That's why when I design a mage I focus on Detection and usually always take Astral Clairvoyance. Would give me a heads up of such things. Also in a team environment this is the type of stuff that legwork can unveil for you. Unless the GM is being a real dick and not revealing any clues that it could be aspected (shrines, standing stones, mirrors) or the players don't think to ask.

@Jaid: agreed. However that isn't the topic of the OP

@McAllister: Okay, you caught me in some hyperbole there. The probability wouldnt be 1 but it does move towards that. PC mage just went from 5 to 4 and the Corp Mage went from 3 to 4. And the corpsec lt has Sorcery 4 so not that far off (he has 9 dice base to cast, 10 with BC 1). He has powerbolt and stunball. And he also gets the BC as a bonus to Drain tests. Ouch. That's for professional rating 2! (SR4A, 281) I'd hate to see what a Professional Rating 6 corp sec mage would look like.

Perhaps, but I've always hated Adepts so perhaps I'm a bit bias.

Seriously though, I don't agree with the idea that Mages are "too good" provided of course that all of the negs are taken into account, foci addiction, background counts, vision mods, ect...

As for Adepts, meh, considering the beanies that they get provided that they aren't built around the idea of being "pure" I don't necessarily agree that they are overly screwed by background counts, yeah it can be annoying to lose a power or two, but since it is SOP to allow the player to choose which powers fade away I don't think its all that bad.

No problem. I think your conclusions are wrong, but I have no problem with you and people have been beating on you so defensiveness is natural. The beatings arise out of frustration, I think, but nonetheless...



Well if your sole contention is that a direct combat spell is more powerful than a gun, then the answer can be yes. But there are so many qualifiers that I think isolating the rule isn't useful. And you have to have fair comparisons. Magic 6 / Force 6 spells are pretty powerful. Your comparison should be a sniper rifle at the least. If there's a Force 4 Power Focus flying around (an availability 20, Restricted, 100,000 item requiring 32 karma to bond), then you've got to be comparing it to mundane equipment with all the mods and APDS ammo. Given how noticeable (and how much of a target for Talismongers) such a focus could make a character, the equivalent would be the MMG with gyromount at the very least. For that money, I could buy a Crimson Samurai drone with a Vindicator Minigun, all the mods, four times over and the availability would still be lower (albeit it Forbidden, rather than Restricted). Having spent a whole post telling you that you can't compare spells and firearms because they're not like for like, I now find myself saying that if you're going to, you need to at least compare like with like.

Seriously - the magic characters that you have rolled out are pretty powerful ones. I don't know if you played previous editions (I think you might), but the official translation from pre-4th to 4th, is to multiply attributes by 2/3rds. That Magic 6 magician would be a Magic 9 Initiate in previous editions and the Force 9 Stun Ball would be Force 14! That's very powerful stuff.



Agreed with most of the above with the addition of binding costs for spirits as a balancing factor. A samurai pays a pittance for each grenade in comparison to the 2,000 a mage pays for even a moderate spirit.



Good. Don't get me wrong, I do use them. But I'll back you up on this. I disagree very much with your conclusions about DC spells being overpowered (along with magic in general) and I invite you in the friendliest way to reconsider in the light of some of the counter-arguments people have been putting to you. But background counts can really hit an adept very hard. The loss of even 1 PP's worth of abilities can be pretty significant and can spoil the player's fun. Especially when your adept character has a Magic of 4. Get the background count to 2, and this is becoming a major issue.

I agree with Ravor that players should deal with background counts as one of the challenges they face, but the fact remains that they have a major negative impact and are seen (not only by players but by this GM) as a cop-out way of gimping the magic rules.

Happy Panda Yes, I have only ever been trying to argue from the point of view of DC spells >= Shooting someone. Sam and Mage both bring invaluable tools to the table. Hence my sarcastic post on Page 2 I believe -- Technomancer and (to a lesser degree) Hacker is actually by far the most valuable character you can bring to the table.

Unfortunately I haven't presented a single mage that isn't possible to create out of character creation. Sad Panda While I grant you that said mages I created won't be well rounded at anything but magic stuff they can rely on their 10 spells and their spirits to round them out. I chose the Ares Alpha because that one was specifically mentioned by someone as a counter-argument. APDS and Ex-Ex are actually equivalent in terms of the number of dice they negate but personally I prefer Ex-Ex because it lets the gaming of the dice enter in

Only difference between an MMG and an Ares Alpha is that MMG gets an extra -1 AP but the Ares Alpha has an integral underbarrel grenade launcher and 2 points RC. This means that the AA is more versatile when it comes to multiple opponents and we have a better chance to negate all recoil.

Again however you are not isolating the mechanic with your drones. Now you are isolating the Character Creation mechanic. Note that in my examples I gave a Sam who could fire the Ares Alpha with 29 dice and its Grenade Launcher with 25 dice with no negatives from range, recoil, etc. This was to make sure that both characters were fully optimized for doing that one thing -- casting DC spells or Shooting a Gun. I could say the same thing about spirits as about drones -- my mage could have spent 5 BP and now has 5 Force 5/6 spirits to help him in the fight. That is irrelevant howver because we are starting to get into character optimization/flaws in the character design process (hence my comment of a "hint of Restricted Gear" being overpowered).

If you want to blow my comparison away you can lift the Troll example I built and make a FA capable Assault Cannon. However, again it can hit a max of 3 targets or else suppressive fire at a fraction of the area that a grenade or AoE spell could cover. You could go the Frag grenade/Narcojet route and that is highly effective now that I look at it. There's another topic for you -- is DMSO overpowered?

Yeah binding has always been prohibitive in terms of cost unless your GM actually gives you discounts like he is supposed to for Talismonger contacts, Magical groups, etc. I often allow my mages to get materials like that for free in exchange for what is essentially the Day-Job Flaw (helping out around the store, leading religious services, helping out members of the community, etc). There is also the option to spend downtime Talismongering in SSC and Puyllalup to reduce/eliminate the cost. Remember with that Power Focus 4 all I need is Enchanting 1 to have a pool of 10 or 11 (very good).

As for reconsidering my opinion about Magic in general being broken I am afraid that I am not going to be swayed there. It is VERY good. I admit to being somewhat swayed by DC spells not being as broken. A shootist can deal with single or double targets better than a DC spell and I am loathe to think that anyone would be silly enough (barring Pink Mohawk games) to get into a fight, by themselves, against more than 2 or 3 guys. It is well and truly suicidal even if the mage can deal with it (because of the likely scenario-- shit has hit the fan and you are discovered).