But it takes years for a magician to learn a spell with that high a force, in campaigns that don't allow using Karma Pool between adventures.

@Kanada Ten: Quicken the spell on the cat using 12 Karma. It'll hurt the character who trys to dispell it.

OurTeam, I only have Physical Adept players characters... they can't dispell it. But yeah, the cat belongs to a Lone Star detective with a bent against O'Malley. He's lived through a few hit attempts by the Mob, so He's got a few karma under the belt.

Doesn't taking an Astral Quest make it easier to learn high force spells? More dangerous, of course...

Which reminds me of good spells for a Sorcery Decker:

Catalogue (Detection, MitS)
Detect(Loose Screw) (Detection, SR3)

Fix (Transform Manipulation, MitS)

Kanada Ten, yes, a successful Astral Quest can lower the Karma cost (but not Target Number) and give more dice to roll for learning a spell. Three or four more dice could easily shorten the expected time for learning a spell by 20% or more.

As far as Spells for Dummies: As a rule I never spend Resources for more spell points. I'd rather have lower Resources and Higher Attributes as a starting character.
I typically take one combat spell (Stunball, force 6)
and one healing spell (Treat, force 6)
and Improved Reflexes (force 1)
and use my last 12 spell points to "personalize" my character.

E.g. Fashion, Makeover, Healthy Glow
E.g. Improved Invisibility and Stealth
E.g. Levitate, Clairvoyance, Clairaudience

Only much later do I try for Force 11 Ice Shard, LOS Treat 9, or Force 7 extended-area sustained Hail Storm.

Thistledown, yes you can reduce the cost of spells at character generation, that's exactly what the troll archetype does.

On the force 5 vs 6 issue, I suppose it does depend a lot on what your GM throws at you. In virtually every game I've been in, the opposition magicians have been enough to keep me concerned about spell defence to prevent me from manaballing and fireballing everything in site, but at the same time when I have come to fireballing and manaballing opponents I've found force 5 has been more than adequate every time. Essentially, I think all my GMs I've played with have done a pretty good job at keeping opponents realistic, but the challenges varied enough, and our characters seperated enough to depend on their own versatility and skills. At the end of the day, I think that's what makes a good game - character independance and a variety of challenges, that way opponents don't need to be godly to be a threat.

Personally, I find animate to be amazingly useful... Even at force 2 or 3 (So that it gets past object resistance) its good for distractions and interesting effects... but when it gets high, if you spend some time casting it right, you can get extremely fast, strong things.

Admittedly, i've never actually played a character with it, just NPCs, but it seems very nice all the same.

Which reminds me. Possibly a little off topic, but how do you lot handle damage to animated objects (Statues, etc)?

Try the generic "something to break" measurement: barrier rating. The animated object isn't really going to stop unless you destroy it, and it won't get TN penalties for most damage.

Heh that reminds me of a stupid idea I had some time back, casting petrify on someone, then using animate to send them back against their friends.

Or just control actions.

Didn't petrify go the way of Turn to Goo?

I'm pretty sure it did. Though I can't think of any explanation as to why, except for maybe people thought the effect was too nasty.

No, Petrify is in MitS. I think Turn to Goo got taken away because it often left a pile of perfectly in tact cyberware which could be lifted up and sold on. Petrify would be more difficult to extract the 'ware from which is why it's still in there.

I'd make some custom spells using MITS!

Actually, most bases have been covered by the normal spells, but certainly there are holes to fill or improvements you can make, like a Telepresence spell combining Clairvoyance and Clairaudience, and a multisensoral Invisibility spell to combine stealth and invisibility. Other than that, there's variations on Elemental Manipulations that are pretty obvious, but other than that I've had a lot of trouble finding ideas for mid to low power level spells with it.

Obviously there are uber spells like one akin to the Storm Strike critter power which are effectively creating natural disasters, but in drain terms and actual in game usefulness they're not really worth it other than for super powerful NPCs.

An idea i had was a different catagory of area spells, that affect everything around the caster (Except the caster him or her or possibly itself) with a much larger radius than normal (I went for base detection ranges of magic x force meters)

Personally, i called them 'wave spells, so manawave, firewave, etc.

They didn't turn out too badly, although i did have trouble with figuring out the exact drain code, and so erred on the side of lots. As a result, they tended to be cast at low damage levels, causing widespread and untargeted destruction. Or at least minor disfigurement...

Other than that, health spells seem like the biggest catagory for adding new ones into from what i've seen.

(Hmm... two posts of mine in one topic on the same page - Disturbing...)

A few modified spells I'd take

Fashion (extended)
This spell has range LOS instead of touch and can save the day when you change your opponents armour into a straightjacket.

Catwalk
Area effect fashion with LOS, for those moments when you want that annoying guntooting gang harrassing you dressed in pink bunny suits.

Levitate
When you want someone else to fly...for a while.

Hemmorage (modified Health Spell)
For the bloodmage. Works against living targets and the TN is body. Targets resist with body VS successes very much like powerbolt.

The targets body explodes in blood as every bloodvessel in his/her body ruptures, spewing blood everywhere (or just bleeds a lot when taking lesser damage).

What do you think the Drain on Hemorrhage should be? Making a resistable, Physical damage causing Health spell is usually not very effective, Drain-wise. If you're going for a Health version of Powerbolt (variable DL, LOS, Physical spell), MitS gives you:
Hemorrhage
Type: P * Target: 10 - Essence * Duration: P * Drain: +1(DL+3)
LOS spell that does Physical damage.

That drain is pretty horrible. A Force 5 Deadly Hemorrhage would have a Drain of 9D. Even a Force 3 Light Hemorrhage has 2D Drain.

There are a few Health spells that target Body instead, and at least one which is also Resisted, but the spell design rules don't allow for that. B® might make more sense than 10-E® in this case, however. Still, harmful Health spells are mostly useless. Almost impossible to survive casting one at significant Force and DL unless it's a Symptoms Only, Touch, Mana, Sustained spell:
Paralyze
Type: M * Target: 10 - Essence * Duration: S * Drain: +1(D)
For the duration of the spell, the target takes a virtual Deadly Stun. If this would normally make him/her unconscious, the target is paralyzed instead. Touch range.

AE: Wouldn't that drain level for the first one be +2(DL+2)? Also I don't see why the duration should be Permenant if Instant works for the combat version.

I do agree, however, that harmful health spells are not the best route.

Physical (+1 Drain Power), Harmful (+1 Drain Level), LOS Range (+1 Drain Level), Permanent (+1 Drain Level): +1(DL+3)

There's only one Instant Health spell, Awaken, while all others are either Sustained or Permanent. And since this is a kind of Anti-Heal, it makes sense for it to be Permanent just like Heal is.

I would definately suggest taking a couple of spells that can do some really cool stuff if you are clever. Magic fingers, levitate, shape earth, phantasm, entertainment, shapeshift.

Flexible spells like that always help me roleplay better. Get me thinking like a magigican, I suppose. If you work on it for a while you will find yourself using those very frequently, and having a lot of fun.

I think a good way to make a harmfull health spell would be a poison spell. The drain for it ought to be significantly higher than a combat spell, however, and it should work slower too. Probably only a limited mage that could not cast combat or manipulations would find it worthwhile, though an assasin might like the fact that it could appear to be a non-magical death if the signature was scrubbed.

Sorry, misread.

Remember, if you try to levitate a living creature, they can resist it using Strength or Willpower (whichever is higher).

That's why you levitate their armor instead of themselves. This gets around the magic resistance edge too. While technicallly they could get out of it, it's normally rather difficult when you're stuck in the air.

Ok, I dont have MitS at hand, but I know there is a Wreck (X) spell. Is there anything along a Fix (X) spell to counter it? And what the hell would a wreck spell physicly DO to that car you just junked?

What about See-Me-Not?

One of my players made a spell called "Haze" that fills the area with pot smoke. Kinda like a regular smoke screen, except happier.

Does it add TN modifiers?

+2 TN for all visual based tests, +3 for all tests of resisting food?

damm... not fast enough

You have to make a Body (6) test for the munchies.

thats a will test. but yeah a will (6) or you go get snack food? thats entertainment

What about a test to keep from talking about the government, philosophy, and Pink Floyd?
And it's a BODY test to see if you can withstand the need for Doritos.

Create food was second on his spell list, naturally. Force 6.

Haze gave a TN modifier of 1 per success, up to the spells force, resisted by body. It was applied gradually, though, at +1 per turn.

Doritos

Addiction: 4/M
Edge: 5/10
Fix Factor: 2 Minutes

I can only assume that you are all naughty, naughty people since I, being totally innocent (pure as the driven snow, you know) have no idea what you are all talking about.