I am tkaing this from another thread regarding spells and drain in the astral.

For me there are purposees to both astral combat and spell casting.

Astrall Combat-no drain.
Spell casting-drain.

Astral combat-less damage.
SPell casting-more damage=more drain.

Astral combat:can use weapon foci.
Spell casting: can use foci for spell casting.

Astral Combat:No counterspelling
Spell casting: No defense other than will + counterspelling.

Now-depending on your opponent, you may want to do either. If your oppoenent has little astral combat but a high counterspelling, go with astral combat. If the reverse is true, you go with a spell. In a long fight (more than a couple of cobat turns), astral combat is more advantageous as there the longer the fight, the higher the likelyhood of a drain.

You forgot one distinction:

Spell casting-range as visibility permits
Astral Combat-range as melee combat

@Drain: a Force 11 still is only 4P drain. Unless the opponent has lots of counterspelling it should take care of him.

Aye, the only real way that Astral Combat is viable is in Mana Ebbs and such where spellcasting is harder than normal.

This is why I personally increase the range os Astral Combat to LOS, up the drain while in Astral, ect...

As a houserule we have upped the Drain for overcasting significantly (also for other magic activities, like summoning).

Drain is Force - Magic + Magic/2 (round down) when overcasting (otherwise the standard Force/2 (rounded down)).

Essentially, you halve the Force only up to your Magic Rating, everything beyond is counted full.

Also, when you resist physical Drain, you have to resist the full Drain Value twice, once as physical and once as stun.

Works nicely, IMHO, to keep Magic within reason (no flinging Force 11 Stunbolts left and right).

Bye
Thanee

I find that houserule unnecessary. Do you restrict streetsams, adepts hackers and riggers similarly? What about the mage who uses a focus, specialization and a mentor spirit to increase his dice pool and thus his net hits? Do you further penalize mages for being good at their job by using the IMHO stupid rule about increased damage of direct combat spells?

BTW you do know that drain for summoning is not based on Force but on the hits of the summoned spirit, right?

Meh, that is one of the better changes that they introduced and the only "stupidity" about it was when the devs backtracked and made it optional instead of default.

Magic is not and has never been meant to be the be-all end-all of the Sixth World.

Noone forces you to use it.



No, they have enough restrictions as it is.

Besides, the 'restriction' is purely for overcasting. Everything up to the Magic Rating works just fine. Overcasting is simply too easy (IMHO, of course).



Hits are limited to Force.



They are not prevented at all from being good at their job.



I'm not sure, what you mean?



Yes. But that doesn't change the part about double Drain when summoning beyond one's Magic Rating.

Bye
Thanee

I know and i won't



Hmm so you have no problem with the adept shooting two long bursts with two SMGs at a DP of around 20, and no visibility modifiers in most situations, or look up the pornomancer somewhere on this forum, or take the rigger with his drone army. Yes the PCs are powerful, but not only the spellcaster. so a nerf for this class is unnecessary IMHO

What you are actually saying is you don't like overcasting and soaking all the drain. Depending on the type of spell this isn't even easy without the houserule



True, but to consistently get more than 5 (which is the Magic Attribute for most starting characters) you'd have to have a dice pool of 15 or more. To get there you need some sort of Bonus anyway.



With a OR of 5+ to affect a device you most starting characters need to overcast. Penalizing for affecting the device at all is preventing them to do their job for mr



The rule in SR4A to increase the drain of direct combat spells by one for each hit used to increase damage.



I forgot about that.

If that is your foundation of an average character, I can certainly see where the differences are coming from.



No, that houserule is pre SR4A, of course. Havn't really read it yet, so I'm only half-aware of the changes.

But I do agree, that this is a weird rule.

Bye
Thanee

That is not an average character, as most shadowrunners are not average, but a part of a character that can easily be built with 400BP. AGI 5 (40BP), Automatics(SMG) 5(+2) (22BP), Ambidexterity (5 BP) Adept (5BP), Magic 2 (10BP), Restricted Gear (5BP), 40000¥ (8 BP) for a total of 95 BP

Adept Power: Improved Automatics 2(1 PP)

Gear: Muscle Toner 4( 32000¥), 2 x modded Ingram Smartgun X with Gas Vent 3, Underbarrel Weight, Personalized Grip (2 x 1175¥), Contact Lenses with Image Link, Smartlink, Flare Compensation (725¥), Glasses with Low-Light vision, Thermographic Vision, Image Enhancement 3, Image Magnification (700¥) add ammo for up to 4225¥

AGI 5(9) + Automatics(SMG) 5(7)(+2) + 2 Smartlink = 20

So the character shoots one long burst with the Smartgun in his one hand, switches the linked device to the other gun and shoots another long burst with the one in the other hand, eacht with a dice pool of 20 since each weapon has 5 points of recoil compensation.

If you take only half as much ammo and add an Improved Range Finder to the weapons(2 x 1000¥), range penalties only occur beyond 40m instead of 10.

This is far from being maxed out and still this character can easily kill without risking to hurt himself in the action. Replace Automatics(SMG) with Heavy Weapons(Grenade Launcher) and the smartguns with MGL-6s with airburst links and you even get an area effect.

[Edit]Added the Ambidexterity quality and fixed the adept power and the DP in the text. the character is only supposed to have Improved Automatics 2 and Automatics 5 not 6.[/Edit]

Sure, but remember, I believe that the devs were smoking crack when they wrote up the char gen rules as compared to the fluff so saying that something is possible using RAW per char gen doesn't really hold water with me, although I'm sure that it does with others.

Excuse Me... What double drain for exceeding the magic rating?
When you summon over you magic rating, Drain goes from being Stun to being Physical... it does not double...

What the heck are you talking about here?

About my post above.

Bye
Thanee

About my post above.

Bye
Thanee

P.S. What's up with these double posts... 2nd time already...

I've no intention to join the argument, I just have a small nit to pick: "Force - Magic + Magic/2"? What? Math called, it wants you to know you can constrict to "Force - Magic/2" instead...

Yeah, I know, you have to round different then, however.

Also, the less condensed formula more clearly shows the idea.

Bye
Thanee

What I think she actually wanted to write is DV=(if(Force>Magic;(Force/2)+Force-Magic;Force/2))+spell specific drain modifier If(Force>Magic;P+S;S)

Well, no, I wrote what I wanted to write. But it's essentially the same (just one minor typo in your formula).

DV=(if(Force>Magic;(Magic/2)+Force-Magic;Force/2))+spell specific drain modifier If(Force>Magic;P+S;S)

Bye
Thanee

P.S. Just noticed your post above, must have missed that...

Can you even fire 2 Long Bursts in one phase (except with those HV weapons)? I think not.
Also you seem to have missed the off-hand penalty (and why is the dp 22 when you add it up to 20 (and shouldn't the Adept power only be at level 2)?).
And... saying that character is far from being maxed out (assuming you refer to his ability to shoot automatics) is quite an understatement, isn't it?

But all that isn't the point... really. There are a lot more things to consider (like how easy it is to 'conceal' your F11 Stun Bolt, for starters, or how it is actually possible to defend against 20dp firearm attacks, but not nearly as 'easy' to defend against direct combat spells, which can also have a 20dp before Edge or Initiation (cue Binding or Foci), or how you actually have to max-out a character to shoot that well, while pretty much any mage with a decent Magic Rating can throw F11 Stun Bolts left and right).

Besides, if you have a different view on these matters, that's cool. No need to convince anyone who is perfectly happy with how things are.
Not saying this is better. Just saying this is how I like it (even when playing a mage) and how we play it.

Sorry but I can't find my alleged typo. Both formulae are the same as far as I can tell.
A weapon can only fire a short and a long burst in an action phase. But nothing prevents you from firing one long burst with each weapon.
Woops forgot to write down Ambidexterity for 5BP, it is included in the total though.
Well you could change the race for more AGI, you could increase the skill to 6 or 7 with aptitude, enabling you to take Improved Automatics 3, then throw in genetic optimization and surge, add a reflex recorder and your closer to a dice pool of 30 than 20. I have not checked if all of the options work at CharGen

Well casting any Force 11 Spell is blatantly obvious. The only advantage is that you don't have to carry it around. But because of fear of mages in the setting a mage license will probably raise more eyebrows than a license for SMGs especially if they are loaded with SnS.

Magic/2 not Force/2



Fair enough.



Is that so? I don't really see (havn't looked superclosely, though) that the burst limit is per weapon. Always thought it was per character.

Bye
Thanee

P.S. I was mostly refering to the far from in far from being maxed out. Sure there is some room left, but that's not a whole lot.

Besides, if you have a different view on these matters, that's cool. No need to convince anyone who is perfectly happy with how things are.
Not saying this is better. Just saying this is how I like it (even when playing a mage) and how we play it.

Woops. Of course it's Force

I was sure it was per weapon but I can't find it right now. Two short burst of SnS should be enough to down most guards as well.

Well how far it is to the theoretical maximum is debatable an a 25% increase to me is significant, but I wanted to show that with a smaller investment in BP another character type can be similarly deadly. Thus mages need not be singled out for nerfing.

Noooo! The other way around. It's Magic/2 that is added to the Force that goes beyond Magic (F-M + M/2)!

Just compare with the corrected formula I posted right below there in my reply, where I pointed it out.



Yeah, you don't need nearly as much to down a typical security guard.



Yeah, but that alone isn't the point. It's a more complex subject.

Anyways, see edit above.

Bye
Thanee