I disagree (with dax), as somone who does paintball and amtgard and some martial arts.

I have some control over my environement in combat as well. I can move, if I have a plan, and that plan is, dodge attacks and cast spell, I can do that. besides it aint like the SR combat is modelling a single weapon swing anyway. If he beats me init wise, it means I get to defend before I get a chance to get my spell(s) off, but that doesn't mean I am distracted to the point I can't finish my spell.

plus we're talking about professional mercenaries here, not amatuers like me, yeah the adrenaline is running high, but are you gonna drop your best weapon when faced with the monster? getting that spell off would become #1 priority in my mind if I know he's gonna pummel me if I don't smack him down.

anyway, it's a difference in philosiphy, I think a mage would be able to concentrate on it in combat, otherwise he couldn't cast spells in combat at all. If being hit/swung at distracts him, than shooting at him should distract him just as much. which no one here is argueing it does.

I see SR magic as "I focus on what I want to happen and it happens" figuring out how to focus is learning the spell. so in combat, I focus on mr troll being blasted by a powerball, and it happens. yeah, he's gonna try to hit me, but that doesn't make me any less focused on him exploding.

-Mike R.

PS I might make someone take a penalty for targeting someone outside of the melee they are in with a spell, as that would be distracting.

edit: damn fast and furious today.

I think, however, that ACL's original point is valid. However, I think I would modify it to this: touch based spells in melee combat would require reach to be applied. In this case, you could use the melee "attack" as the touch range.

I made a character once -- a magician adept -- with touch based elemental manips that he designed himself shamelessly taken from AD&D. So, he had burning hands, cold touch, shocking grasp, and one that I named blaster for lack of a better name that used the blast elemental effect to knock opponents around when he used it in melee. For all of those spells, the range was touch and if I was using them in melee, my GM ruled that my Sorcery roll could be used in lieu of a melee attack and if I generated more success on the Sorcery test that the opponents melee defense, the spell succeeded and needed to be resisted. Therefore, reach did come into play.

Later, we decided we didn't like this concept and made all of the spells sustained so that I could cast them and then hold them while in melee. Which ended up being about the same with that +2 modifier for sustaining spells.

Anyway, I digress. I think reach should definately apply if there's a touch range on the spell or if a geas would state that the caster must touch the target of a spell. However, for LOS spells, I'd say no. I interpret reach to be the difficulty of getting close enough to an opponent to hit her or him. Therefore, if you're not trying to hit her or him, then you don't need reach.

I would, however, apply other modifiers that ACL mentioned including using a firearm in melee. It's a stretch of the interpretation but one that I think very nicely conforms to existing rules and represents attacking someone with a "ranged" item.

Yes Fahr, but we're still talking about paintball and martial arts which, lets face it, aren't the real thing. Professioanl soilders and police can freeze and have difficulties in real fight situations.

Unless you've actually been in a fire fight with real bullets zipping about (which I doubt many of us, including myself, have ever been in), you really don't know how easy it will be to act and think of multiple things at once.

Myself, I tend to lean towards the view that it would be more difficult, and it would be highly stressful to be in combat at all. There's just something about flying lead that urges me to keep my head down and my mind on who is trying to kill me.

Edit: Let me clarify the matrial arts comment. Most of the time your using them, it isn't in a life or death situation. Those things don't crop up all that often.

Just wanted to apologize to John and everyone else yet again for my outburst. I know few of you care and find me to be little more than a total ass, but I am being quite sincere. I'm also working at keeping my aggressiveness in check, but I just get a little passionate from time to time. So for that, I again apologize.

Okay, since Amtgard has already been brought up-- in Amtgard, I can get a spell off while a fighter is trying to hit me. Amtgard spells require an incant and in some cases, an additional physical action (throwing the fireball, etc.) as well as keeping your feet planted. While getting hit disrupts the spell, if you manage to avoid getting hit while pulling off the incant, you succeed.

Now, I have pulled off some very complex Amtgard spells with fighters in my face. (Fahr-- imagine a mage who pulls off the Wind spell right as you're swinging at him. I did that. ) Amtgard magic, although not realistic, does take a great deal more time than the thought required to cast a Shadowrun spell.
Besides which, as John pointed out, there are already penalties in place-- wound penalties. If the mage is attacked and not hurt, why should it matter? Yes, combat is chaotic-- but that's why a default carries a +4 penalty, the skill presumes that you have the ability to use it under combat conditions.

Once again, a Complex Action is not "instaneous." No need to bring the multiple spells as part of the same action up, either; you can make multiple attacks in melee combat at the same penalty, though at least in melee you don't have to split your dice. At least not unless you want to claim that combat is "instaneous," too.

realistically no its not but in the purposes of combat yes it is, it doesn't happen over multiple phases. It happens all at once, and is done before the next person acts no matter how soon afterwards. Silly? yes. Correct? also yes.

You mean like the "instaneous" action of aiming a pistol (Simple Action) and shooting it (Simple Action)? I had no idea that was instaneous, either, even though it takes exactly the same amount of time.

I can see Clockwork Lime's logic, sort of, but I think he's using the wrong set of modifiers. If you want something that reflects the difficulty of casting a spell while someone is in your face, Reach is not very relevant for the mage trying to get a spell off. He is more like someone trying to use a firearm while being attacked in melee. So, while I personally wouldn't add to a mage's woes in melee, if I did, I would use the Attacker in melee combat modifier of +2TN per opponent, the same as someone trying to use a pistol against an attacker.


You know, there's one big flaw to the hit-the-mage-and-run attack that I just thought of. There's nothing stopping that mage from moving right after you on his initiative pass and getting LOS back. It depends, though, on whether the mage expects you to try the tactic again and is therefore desperate. Otherwise, most sensible people would not go charging around a corner after someone who just seriously hurt them. The other thing to keep in mind is that while sorcerers are limited to spells, a full mage or shaman might summon a spirit and send that after you.

Too much time on the summoning aspect. One must summon (exclusive complex), then command (IIRC, simple), and then the spirit wastes an exclusive complex action to materialize. Two to three passes, minimum.

If one had a spirit on hand it would be more reasonable.

I think all that I needed to know has been said. Everything now is just opinions and house rules

Er no, there are no such things as simultaneous actions outside of melee combat. If you are holding an action and use it when soemone else's action comes up then you act before them. They still get their actions, plus possible wound penalties and a decrease in initiative, unless they are dead or uncsonscious. In that case you are not interrupting anything, you just went before them. You are not doing it in the middle of their action, their action has not been started yet. You are beating them wholesale. You are not interrupting their action, you are preempting their action. There is a difference. Interrupting an action is preventing the action from completing after it begins, in SR you are technically stopping the action from ever starting.

Someone go read my post at the bottom of page two about the timing involved here; it seems to have been overlooked.

No, its not instant, but its so fast that unless the melee hit occured *exactly* when the caster tried, it would do nothing except apply the wound modifiers which already exist.

For all intents and purposes, you cant interrupt a thought, you can only make it harder to concentrate. A modifier for distraction would be much more relevant than any melee based modifiers; yet again due to timing issues this is already reflected rather well.