Hi, I'm in a shadowrun 4e game and I am trying to pull off a mage. I have read the chapter on spells as well as a few forum posts and I'm still a bit confused about spell force. When casting a spell force 5 I roll spell casting + magic. Say I get 6 hits, I know that the force limits my hits to 5, but is the total power of the spell now force 5 + hits 5 for a net of 10? Or is it just 5? If you can apply this to stunball, do I do 10 stun or 5?

I inderstand this may be a newby question and I'm sorry if its a stupid one. Most of the threads I've read seem to use both rullings at some point with no description as to why.

Thanks for the help!

The force of the spell is whatever it is when you cast it. However, yes - if you cast a Manabolt at me, and got 6 successes and it was force 5, I would have to roll Willpower to reduce a damage value of 10 - 5 from force, 5 from successes. If I got no successes, I would take 10 boxes of damage. It does not increase the force of the spell, but it does increase damage. Think of it this way: 'Force' is the base weapon damage for your spell, if you think of spells like guns. Extra successes are like the successes on your firearms roll.

This is true of all combat spells.

Adarael has it backwards. For the stunball there is an opposed roll between the mage and the target, but the mage may only use Force hits. If the mage is the winner of the opposed test the targets takes Force + net hits damage. If the tests results in a tie(target scores 5 hits as well) or the target rolls more than 5 nothing happens and the target remains unscathed.

For some spells the force is just a limit for the hits on the spellcasting test for others force and hits determine the effectiveness of the casting. for example the fly speed of a levitated target is Force*net hits.

Force never changes during or after the casting.

I don't have it backwards. I specified "if I roll no successes, I take 10 damage." How is this backwards?

Ok, I think I understand.

For example;

If I use increase reflex force 4 that will limit the nember of hits I can get, noe automaticaly give me a 4 base.

Also are manaball and stunball resisted the name way the? If the resisting roll equals my hits (not including force) then nothing happends? Or in the case of manaball is the resist only to reduce the amount of damage?

Both Manaball and Stunball are Direct, Mana spells. The difference is that Manaball does physical damage. Yeah it gets confusing between mana and physical spells and physical damage.

You resist them with Willpower + Counterspelling (if any), via an Opposed Test.

The Force is an upper limit on the number of hits you can get. What's left is the net hits that increases the Damage Value.

Say you cast a Force 5 Stunbolt at me, rolling 7 hits. Only 5 of those hits count. Say I have Willpower 3 with Counterspelling 2 (from a buddy mage protecting me). I roll 2 hits. You go from 5 hits to 3 net hits, removing the 2 I got. Thus your Force 5 Stunbolt does 8 DV of Stun damage to me (Force 5 + 3 Net Hits).


Yes, for the Improved Reflexes spell the Force is the upper limit too, but that's a success test not an opposed test, requiring certain thresholds. It starts making sense after a while.

The first is correct. If you roll 5 hits and I roll 5 hits, nothing happens. If you roll 5 hits and I roll 2 hits, your spell does Force + the 3 hits over me you got (limited by force - you'd only count 1 hit, if it was force 1) in damage. So if you cast a Force 12 Manabolt and got 5 hits, and I got 3 to resist, you'd do 15 physical damage to me.