Ok. As I understand it all EM's have a base target number of 4. Caster rolls his sorcery skill plus any spell pool. Lets say he cast it at force 5D. How do you resist against this?

Also how do they work against vehicles? Very curious about lightning bolt. From it's description it seems like it is a vehicle killer. (fries computer systems).

Thanks

Thanos

The target starts by making a dodge test. If the target gets more successes on the dodge test than the attacker on his then the target is not hit.

If the target failes, then you continue as if it where a regular ranged attack. Roll soak, compare successes and stage the damage.

It starts out the same way against vehicles. The magician rolls his dice against a TN of 4, the driver tries to evade. If the vehicle is hit with a 5D spell, the damage is changed to (5/2-vehicle armor)S (just like a normal attack on a vehicle). Note that if (5/2-armor) is negative or zero then the spell has no effect. You then figure out damage as usual on the vehicle.

If a car is hit by lightning bolt you first figure out the normal damage, and then you roll 2D6, add the numbers together and see if they exceed 7 (+2 if the spell was serious, +4 if it was moderate). If the combined sum of the two dice exceed the number, then the secondary effects take place. Note that the number is found on page 182 according to the Object Resistance table. I used 8 for a car, which was modified by Lightning bolt to 7.

Edit: Smelling pisstakes! And clarity.

Also note that (Ball)Lightning Bolt has little to no effect on vehicles that are not grounded

Good post, LD, but you missed a few details.

First of all, the guy gets to use half his impact armor to help soak. Against most ranged attacks, it's usually either straight ballistic or impact. As a result, that 5D is as effective against someone with an armored jacket as is a heavy pistol-- actually, more so, since the damage level is higher.

Second, the FAQ mentions that area-effect attacks are harder to dodge, and suggests adding a +2 penalty to the dodge tests. I apply that to area-of-effect EM's as well; so it's much harder to dodge a Fireball than a Fire Bolt.

Damaging manipulations have a higher Drain and tend to be easier for a target to resist, but they also have some advantages. You have to stage them down, unlike a Combat spell, where you can roll one more success than the spellcaster and be unharmed by a spell cast at Deadly. Also, area effect damaging manipulations can hit people hiding behind a barrier within the area of effect, again unlike Combat spells which need direct LOS to affect a target. Finally, remember the secondary elemental effects - they can do things like ruin armor, cook ammo, etc.

I wanted to give you something to do.

whaaaaaaaaa? we've been playing that wrong for 3 years now! our group has always staged combat spells down like normal damge, "you get 2 more successes it goes down a level, good job" must not have occured to any of us that it doesn't affect you if you get the same number of successes, makes me wanna go read that section again.

Heh. Go for it. Page 183, under "Spell Effect," second paragraph.

Under the description of the Lightning Bolt spell is a statement to the effect that it "ignores metal armor" (sorry, no books with me right now). How does this figure into the equation when computing damage to vehicles?

It really doesn't since almost all descriptions of vehicle in SR are ceramic and polycarbonite. Incidentally, I couldn't find that line anyway.

where did you get the idea that all vehicle armor was metallic?