My spells are as follows:

Combat Sense
Detect Life
Fix
Heal
Increase Reflexes
Influence
Levitate
Manascape (From Digital Grimoire)
Mind Probe
Physical Mask
Stunbolt
Trid Phantasm

What specialization of Spellcasting should I choose, and why?

That depends on what you want your mage to be best at. It appears as if he has more Manipulation spells than any other category. That would be a reasonable choice.

I have zero 4e play experience (and nearly zero 3e), so I'm not sure what needs the extra dice the most. Manipulation does seem to be a good choice. Anyone else?

Yeah it depends where you want to take this but as pointed out you're really heavily into the manipulation spells to the point they dominate your list. UNLESS you want to go for health or detection spells because they are weaker in your line up-kind of like "Yeah i know manipulation spells, they're my strong point, so I better specialize in something else to boost that weaker line."

Well, let's break it down:

Combat Sense - Detection
Detect Life - Detection
Fix - Manipulation
Heal - Health
Increase Reflexes - Health
Influence - Manipulation
Levitate - Manipulation
Manascape (From Digital Grimoire) - Illusion
Mind Probe - Detection
Physical Mask - Illusion
Stunbolt - Combat
Trid Phantasm - Illusion

Illusion might be another good choice, to make my illusions harder to crack. Thoughts?

[Edit:] I'd forgotten that Mind Probe is detection, not Mental Manipulation.

Don't prioritize based on how your categories fell out. Rather, prioritize based on what you need more hits in to be successful. Your big ones are Heal, Influence, and Physical Illusions, with Stunbolt, Fix and Mind Probe following behind. BTW, Fix can either be read as being effective or near-useless, depending on whether your GM allows you to use all hits, or only the hits exceeding the threshhold. It states that you use hits where most spells state Net Hits, and if you have to use Net Hits you're going to need a LOOOOT of successes.

Personally, I would lean towards the Manipulation category anyway, but not because you have a lot of them, rather because when you need Influence or Mind Probe to work, you need it to work strong and work right the first (and probably only) time you try it. On the other hand, I play in a game heavy on interaction and light on combat. If your game leans the other way, you might prefer your massive hits on Stunbolt (combat) or Heal (health). I don't recommend Health, mainly because I've discovered that the people who really need immediate healing are universally the ones who are most resistant to it Essence-wise, but don't tell my team that I said that.

If you are playing SR4A (aka The Errata Edition), I recommend specializing in Illusion instead, and buying Magic 6 (or always overcasting) and a R4 Power Focus, as they have raised the threshhold for affecting cameras so high as to be nigh-unreachable by mortals.

I don't recall camera thresholds being that high; IIRC it was drones which got the big OR boost. I'm leaning toward Illusion anyway though, mostly because you NEED that Physical Mask/Trid Phantasm to work, and IC you won't know how successful it was. I might dump Fix; do you have any suggestions for a replacement?

Think of it this way... which spells do you need to generate the most hits on to make work. This is from a pure power gaming standpoint, a character concept might call for something different.

Generally those you'll run into object resistance problems. Health spells not really... just an extra point healed now and then. Your illusions need 5 hits to work against drones and sensor suites, so those might be a good pick.


Your manipulations also would need to overcome object resistance if used on items. Some others (mental manipulations) characters can get multiple resistance tests to shake them off, so more hits will allow you to maintain control of the target longer. Also manipulations are very flexible (my personal view is that the school should be broken in 2, mental and physical manipulations).


Looking at your spell list... I'd probably go with manipulations. Not knowing your traditions spirit options. I'd also look at keeping a bound spirit for your illusion school. Something w/ lowish force but a lot of services for aid sorcery. Getting that OR5 threshhold can be rough, but once you're there you really don't need more hits. But generally when you need it, you need it, and if you have spirit available it'll be able to cover for some uses of actual manipulation spells.

I don't go in much for straight-up mind control - too unsubtle. I think influence will probably be the extent of his mental manipulation. I'm probably going to dump Fix, and extra hits on Levitate just increase speed, neh? With Influence, the possibility of willpower tests to "confront the wrongness of the suggestion" arises, but if I'm careful how I word things that shouldn't come up too often. It's really Influence vs. Physical Mask, Trid Phantasm, and Manascape at this point, and a higher threshold for my illusions is a VERY good thing. I don't want that guard to realize the "empty hallway" is actually full of shadowrunners and/or corpses, or the driver to realize that bridge is actually 10 meters to the left of its apparent position, or anyone at all to see through my disguise (Physical Mask + Manascape = a pretty good disguise on both planes).

It actually might be worthwhile to specialize in Detection - Combat Sense gives extra reaction for surprise tests and attack defense per hit, Mind Probe gives better results at breakpoints 3 and 5, and detect life gives MUCH better results at higher levels. I also might replace Fix with Clairvoyance.

So, bottom line: Illusion or Detection? I'm actually leaning towards Detection.

[Edit:] I'd forgotten that Mind Probe is detection, not Mental Manipulation.

Just remember that you need a sustaining focus to make good on those combat sense type spells. You take 2 dice penalty for sustaining so you need at least 3 hits and force 3 to make good. Common problem you run into once you start running foci and especially sustaining types is magic addiction. (2x magic rating in active foci... you have what 10 points worth of foci... that doesn't leave a lot for high force castings which can use those extra hits).



Levitate can be fun... you can't counterspell objects, only living creatures you declare. So once when faced w/ overwhelming counterspelling... my reaction was, I levitate the desk into the enemy mage. (look at the levitate rules for throwing objects). So there's some good uses in there.

I'm thinking of using a F4 power focus (Restricted Gear), a F4 sustaining focus for Increase Reflexes, and a F2 sustaining focus for Combat Sense if I go with 5 magic; or 4/4/4 if I go with 6.


What do you mean by that?

Successes/hits are capped by force. So yes a force4 focus under no background count can have 4 hits... you get into a mana static, or a light background count and you'll quickly find yourself losing successes. Similarly, low force castings are easy to dispel, so if it's important having 1 or 2 extra successes can be very usefull.


So if you cast at force4. You can only use 4 hits (not net hits) on your spellcasting test. Those will then be reduced by the resistance roll on some spells like illusions. Similarly, things such as a background count will reduce the force of the focus and the force of the spell stored in it. (1 point BGC's aren't uncommon, neither are 2 pointers... remember BGC's go from -12 to 0 to +12... so 1 or 2 points is not a large or heavy condition). So generally you'll want a slightly higher force focus... then you start to run into issues as you'll pick some up in play, and you'll be surprised at how quickly you run into risking focus addiction. (it's relatively karma cheap to bond most focii compared to raising magic etc.).

Cameras are OR 3+ and Drones are OR 5+, depending on the relative complexity of a given device. So fooling a drone's cameras would be OR 3 (unless the cameras / sensors are better for some reason) while affecting the drone as a whole would be OR 5 (or better).

The rationale is that if you are casting an illusion, the illusion isn't affecting the drone. It's affecting its sensors / cameras. Whereas casting a Lightning Bolt at the drone would be affecting it directly.

It's sort of like casting an Illusion against a human vice casting a Stunbolt against a human. Our minds & eyes are much like the camera in the drone example.

That's the house rule that everyone and their mother including the writers, came to after they realized what idiocy the SR4A OR table had created. Was it actually changed officially at some point that I missed, or is it still just the writers on dumpshock calling it a not-unreasonable house-rule interpretation?

It was changed officially... My copy of the book lists OR3 and OR5

Keep the Faith

No it wasn't changed darthmord. Synner even reiterated in that monstrous 20 page thread.

A drone and all it's systems are OR5, not OR3. Nowhere is this changed in RAW. Even back in the main thread, Synner stated a single standalone sensor like a security camera is OR3, but a sensor SUITE such as found on a drone will be OR5.

Don't advocate the house rule as RAW as it isn't. You can't arbitrarily pick and choose subsystems of a drone/car/whatever to arbitrarily lower their object resistance threshholds. (not saying that RAW may not be overly harsh here, but when rules lawyering you can't pick and choose favorites or create completely arbitrary distinctions out of thin air such as illusions get a lower OR, while detection, combat, & manipulation spells must deal with the higher OR).


The only thing they changed going from the original PDF to the printed book. They changed the OR chart from going 1/2/4/6 to 1/2/3/5.

Falconer, that's what tymeaus said... He merely agreed with darthmord that cameras are OR3 and drones are OR5. Accusing people of misattributing house rules and RAW will only start another silly flame war.

Apathy, please read exactly what Darthmord said.

I quote. "So fooling a drone's cameras would be OR 3".

This is blatantly incorrect, and Tymeaus only addresses the confusion regarding the OR4/6 vs. OR3/5. If I was merely restating what Tymeaus posted, I wouldn't have bothered posting.

Thank You Apathy...

That was indeed what I was doing, Falconer's opinion notwithstanding... And Falconer... Please read the Post by Darthmord, and I quote



Seemed like I was agreeing with him there... can't see how you missed it...



Keep the Faith

Because your post was ambiguous, and I don't jump to conclusions. If there's a positive light I can read it in, then I try and take it in that light. So I read it as merely addressing the fact that OR's got reduced by a point after some discussion regarding the original SR4a pdf.

If you're agreeing w/ darthmord's post, then it's in direct opposition to Synner's post on the subject when all this was being hashed out (and the OR's ended up getting reduced by a point). Synner was very clear that drones, including their sensors, would have the higher OR5 threshold.


So if you're agreeing with him, then I'll lump you with you as dead wrong and spreading misinformation given the only clarification we've been given by the powers that be. My own personal feelings are ambivalent... on one side, it seems an overly high threshold, but on the other... having mages have some problems dealing w/ drones seems a good balancing mechanism.

Hey... No Problems Falconer...

I agree with the OR3 and OR5 correction (from OR4 and 6 Respectively), but do not agree with Synner's position on Suites vs. Single Sensor sytems... they are still both sensors... at our table, we use the OR3 threshold for affecting all Sensors, regardless of what they are attached to, and OR5 for affecting the Drone itself (as an Illusion does not target a drone(generally), it targets an area and the drone interacts with it; there is a difference you know)... It disagrees with Synner's (and your) opinion... but there you go, it works for us, and the Shadowrun Gaming Police have yet to show up to issue us a citation...

Keep the Faith

As OP, I say we assume the higher OR when affecting a drone's cameras and continue with the original discussion: Detection or illusion? You don't see a lot of people advocating detection spec - actually, I don't think I've ever seen anyone else do so - but I think it could be extremely handy. Detailed knowledge from detection spells generally has a threshold of 5. OTOH, you don't need net hits over a threshold for detection spells like you do with illusions when besting OR. Thoughts?

I maintain my original statement: As you are using the SR4A mods, I recommend Illusion.

I actually tend to agree, but I wanted to make the case for Detection, since nobody else even considered it despite the large number of Detection spells on my roster.

Detection Spells are great, and have wonderful utility all by themselves... go for it...

Keep the Faith