Under the current system either the player succeeds with bonus successes or he fails with magic. The resisting player has no way of affecting damage so they will take fairly high damage regardless of their resistance. I instead propose a slight complication

As usual it is an opposed test. The mage has to get 1 net success to affect the opponent. The opponent however gets the benefit of having their gross successes also subtract from the damage.

Example The mage casts a force 6 powerbolt. The opponent scores 3 succeses and the mage 4 successes. The mage gets the 1 net success, but the DV is reduced by 3. The opponent takes 3P damage.

ummm... under the old system, the mage was dealing force + net hits, with total (not net) hits capped by force. as such, under the old system, if you got 2 hits on your resistance test, you most certainly were facing less damage than if you had rolled 0 hits. you are solving a problem that never existed.

The usual comparison for combat spells is the firearm, which also has a set DV. When being shot at you get to dodge and resist the damage, where dodging reduces the net hits (or avoids damage entirely) thus resulting in less of a DV increase from attacker successes and damage resistance directly reduces the DV after that. Indirect combat spells work just the same. Direct combat spells skip the dodge test which is a big bonus, but indirect spells have their own advantages so yes, combat spells are comparatively dangerous. But then they're meant to be – it takes more BP/karma to cast a F6 powerbolt competantly than to fire a gun competantly and on top of that you need to deal with the drain.

I'm afraid your model is just a downpowered (IMHO inferior) version of RAW. Your version stops the mage from increasing the DV through his superior ability AND allows opposing hits to reduce the DV. Under RAW, without any hits the target would be facing a DV of 10 (6 + 4 net hits) and there's an extra point of DV lost through calling the net hit the 'success' hit, so your rule change would mean a decrease of 7DV for 3 hits in this example.

Suppose the mage rolled 8 hits and the defender rolled 1 hit. Should the base DV of 6 really go down to 5...? You have successfully countered the superiority of combat spells and simultaneously anyone's desire to ever learn one.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=29604

That thread suggests a much better rebalancing of spells by simply making the elemental spells a little less shitty. Remember that a drone with proper mount will fire full auto bursts that deal 15+DV (6P base + 9P for full auto). Even with 10+ points of armour you'll still get 8-10 boxes of damage, knockdown and the drone comes with 3 IPs to start with where the mage either suffers -2 on everything sustaining improved reflexes or have to do with just 1 or 2 IP (2 with drugs that eventually eat his essence and magic ability)

Only if the mage isn't smart enough to buy a Sustaining Focus (Improved Reflexes). 20,000 will get you a second pass with no sustaining penalty, every 10 grand after gets you another.

I did not cap the damage to the force of the spell in the example I only changed the ability to resist damage.

By RAW a force 6 spell with 4 successes vs. 3 successes on willpower does 7DV. You OP said that the value taken was 3DV.

So how does the DV get increased? If it doesn't get boosted by the caster's successes (or by some other, inexplicable means) then capping the damage to the force of the spell is exactly what you've done.

If that's what you were after for your game then great, but it seems as though it isn't.

I was thinking damage increased for every success after the first (ie I neglected the first). So if our mage instead got 6 successes our opponents 3 the final damage with a force 6 spell would be 5DV if we neglect the 1st net success or 6DV if we go for each net success.

The most direct way to balance magic with guns is to create a 'resist magic' skill that works like dodge (And is available to mundanes) and magic armor which protects against spells.

Of course then you run into the fact that it takes way more BP to be able to cast a F6 powerbolt than it does to pick up a 6DV gun and shoot someone with it.

So the resistance successes are indeed subracting twice (compared to RAW) and the caster is losing his first hit as well. This would make magic unfeasibly weak for the setting in my view. For 6 successes to be expectable the caster needs a dice pool of around 18 which requires a serious commitment of resources. On top of that, force 6 is relatively high – for most uninitiated it's overcasting, so the net difference between damage caused and drain suffered is even smaller, possibly only 1 or 2 boxes. Throw in counterspelling and the supercharged magician could easily suffer more than the target, yet HE'S the one who spent a whole complex action to do it.

If you really don't like RAW, I think you'd actually be better off removing magic (or at least sorcery) from your game entirely since then you wouldn't have to worry about rules and balance at all.

Actually it was about making things such as magic resistance better and to cut down on the dice rolls. Odds are you are looking at no more than 3-4 dice vs. your 8-12. Average 2 net successes.

I don't favor a resist magic skill only because I think counterspelling should do that and leave it to the purview of magicians and mystic adepts.