Greetings mes amis,

I'm a brand new Shadowrun player/GM running the First Run adventure. More specifically, the Supernova portion of that scenario. I'm slowly learning the system, along with my 4 players, however, I'm totally confused with the Elemental magic stuff. For an example, I've got a Troll Street Mage who learned Lightning Bolt at Force 5. His target is a helicopter that's disgorging several of Renraku's finest (well...almost finest) Red Sammies to steal a briefcase in a wrecked car. His target number, as it's a Elemental Manipulation spell, is 4, correct? Also, he elected to do Deadly damage...but what is the Power Code of the spell? If one of you more knowlegeble types could post a quick example of this, I'd greatly appreciate it. Also, wat does Drain: +1(Damage Level +1) mean?

The caster chooses the damage level of the spell at the time of casting. If he decided to cast it with a damage code of Moderate, then the Drain would be +1(S).

Drain may be taken when a spell is cast. The Drain Code tells you how much, and how difficult it is to avoid. +1(Damage Level +1) means that the drain for your Force 5 Lightning Bolt if cast at Moderate Damage Level would be 3(S). It is worked out by first dividing the Force of the spell by 2 (rounding down in the case of spells), then adjusting the result by the Drain Code given.

Nice name, seriously.

Anyway, the Power of every damaging spell is equal to the Force of the Spell.

+X (Damage Level + Y)

+X = (Force/2) + X This is the "Power" of the Drain "attack." In your case 5/2+1 = 3 (round down is general in SR, I think).

Damage Level = This is level chosen by the caster for all Damaging spells at the time of casting. In your case Deadly.

(Damage Level + Y) means increase the Damage Level by Y. Light +1 equal Moderate, Moderate +1 equals Serious, Serious +1 equals Deadly. When you add to Deadly damage you increase the Power by 2 for each additional level.

Force 5 Lightning Bolt cast at deadly has a Drain code of 5D, which is resisted by Willpower using any desired Spell Pool that remains.

Wait, wait.

I only resist half of the drain damage?

eg- force 6M spell means I resist only 3M?

Assuming no "+" before the (drain level), you only resist a Power of half Force, unless your GM is making mundanes more deadly by having drain at Force (which is a really good way to power down mages).

Holy poop.

I just got a whole lot better...

BTW, Billy and Mandy has some excellent songs. Although my favorite is the Purple Filth one.

Wouldn't the drain that the mage in question (MiQ) have to save be actually 5D? The Damage Level he chose was Deadly. The spell description states that Damage level is +1. Since he's already at Deadly, the +1 increases the Power by 2 (from 3 to 5), correct? Also, does the Chopper get to make a resistance test, being non-living, non-magical item? If it does not, does it take the aforementioned Deadly wound?

R-W-S

The Chopper does make a resistance test (and a dodge) in the same manner as Ranged Combat. Meaning, it works as if the caster shot a 5D cannon at the chopper, staged by compairing successes. All damaging elemental manipulations work this way. If the spell is area affect, the dodge target number is increased (I think).

As I said, the drain on the spell cast would be 5D; Fortune's example showed it cast at Moderate damage.

Note, that, for Combat, Illusion, Health, Detection, and the other Manilpulation Spells, non-living objects do not ever make a resistance test. They are protected by higher target numbers and Force to OR threshold.

OK...in the Magic section it says they get a resistance test. However, in the vehicles section dealing with Magic, (page 150), It says that elemental manipulation spells are treated as a ranged attack with a TN of 4, and as the vehicles are non-living, they get no Damage Resistance Test....which one is right?

Yeah. I didn't actually notice that you stated he chose to cast it at 'D'. 5(D) is right for your example.

The first and first half of the second, IMO.

I treat it as ranged combat with a TN of 4 and all that in tales.

Runs-with-Scissors: Elemental Manipulation spells are a special case. Because they create REAL elemental effects that generally go in a straight line from caster to target, they work like shooting a gun.

Unfortunately, this means ranged attack modifiers should apply to your target number, meaning you might not be on 4s.

Unfortunately, it also means that against vehicles your spells rarely work. Assuming the rigger doesn't dodge, the power of the spell is first divided by two, meaning your F5 spell is now a Force 3 (I beleive damage is always rounded up). Its damage level is also dropped by one, meaning it now does 3S. If the vehicle has any armour at all, it must be less than the power of the spell - i.e. 3 in this case - AND it drops the damage level by another one, making your spell a 3M at absolute best. Say the chopper for some reason has only 1 point of armour. the chopper is now soaking a 2M hit, with probably 2 or 4 dice from the chopper's body plus control pool from the rigger. He only needs four 2s to take no damage at all.

Meanwhile, you've had to drain it as normal at 5D as someone explained above, and are probably staggering around right in the sights of his HMG.

Lesson - in general manipulation spells are WORTHLESS against armoured vehicles of any kind unless they are very high force. Even against unarmoured vehicles they're pretty bad.

However, use them correctly - call the shot at unarmoured locations, or in the case of a lightning bolt, exposed electronics, arming mechanisms if you can see them, and try to damage a component rather than the vehicle as it will be easier and may save your hoop. note - sometimes this won't be possible to acheive. Know when to run. Your target number if you do this will go up by +4 unless you can spend some time aiming.

Against vehicle, the weakest part is always the pilot. If you can see him, he's toast with a well placed mana spell. If you can't, try to get him another way. Spirits, acid bombs on the windscreen anything. If he's out of it, the vehicle is too. Against drones... try to lure the rigger into 'jumping' into one - preferably an unarmoured one with low Body! - then zap the fragger with a high force lightning bolt if you can, or use your spells to hide from them. Vehicles can't see through illusions, but they have multiple sets of sensors. An improved invisibility spell won't work against their audio sensors or their ultrasound emittors.

use manipulation spells against personnel and sic the sammies on the vehicles. Spells really aren't very good against them. The above tactics work in a pinch, but you should try to avoid this kind of thing until you can learn a really high force custom spell that will do the job for you.

And by the way, Kanada - that spoiler is an eeeeevil little rule that I'd refrained from mentioning in an effort not to scare the poor bugger unduly! Bear in mind that the rule in the spoiler doesn't apply to manipulation spells as they have their own rules. But I reckon it might count for working out secondary effects...

talking of which, I didn't mention to you (R-W-S) before, but secondary effects are sometimes your best hope with manipulation spells. Unfortunately you have to do damage with them first, but if you do manage to, always see if secondary effects might apply, especially with electrical damage and vehicles. Just a tip. The rules for it are in Magic In The Shadows, which you may not have yet. If you don't, you won't be able to use them unless someone wants to reprint them here, but I'm guessing fanpro wouldn't take too kindly to wholesale reprinting of their stuff!

Thanks for the info. I just picked up MitS, and will peruse it when I can...Again, thanks for the help.

R-W-S

I thought that for a elemental spell like Lightning Bolt at 5S, the drain would be 3D. Not 5D. Tell me where I went wrong.