Ok so my party mage is casting powerball on a tank, tank gets object resistance 6, and thats its only defense?

Mage over casts a force 9 powerball gets something like 9 successes and the tank just crumples with no defence to roll.
So a 72 ton tank get crushed by a 72 kilo elf?

Welcome to Shadowrun!

Well, the Tank should have some boxes to fill, but yes.

I consider the whole system of "object resistance" quite fucked up anyway.

If you're fielding an umpteen-thousand nuyen vehicle the price of a mana barrier to wrap it in is a pittance.

So, a powerful magician with an extreme level of skill (or luck) is capable of knocking a tank down to 1/4 it's damage track (if that), and must resist 7 Physical damage in Drain for his trouble, and you are upset about it being "to powerful"?

Now, build an equally skilled (or lucky) heavy weapons specialist or sniper; give them a decent weapon with AV rounds, and see what happens. The tank probably takes a lot more damage, and the guys spend ~50 Nuyen in ammo instead of suffering an aneurysm. Shadowrun is a game of glass cannons; it is far easier to deal damage than it is to take it.


Don't get me wrong - Direct Combat spells are definitely to powerful as written; it's just that the amount by which they are overpowered is often negligible. The biggest problem is that they use a different resolution system than the rest of the game by not allowing a Resistance test after the "dodge". What I personally use for Direct Combat spells and would suggest, is allowing a "dodge" of Intuition + Counterspelling, followed by a Resistance of Body (Physical) or Willpower (Mana) + Astral Armor. I also reduced Object Resistance by 1 step on a 0-1-3-6 scale, so while objects do get a damage resistance, it's easier to affect them & up damage through Net Hits.


Finally, Object Resistance for vehicles / drones (Rules as Written) is 5, not 6. Update your PDF copy of the Anniversary printing, or get a hardcover version.

Also, if you can deal with half the Dumpshock Forums calling you an heretic, War! introduces the Redundant Process Manufacturing vehicle upgrade (basically, making the vehicle manufacturing more toxic than necessary) to increases the Object Resistance by 1 or 2. Beating an Object Resistance above 7 requires an average number of dices above 20.

Also, any visibility modifier, from a smokescreen or an holographic camo, is a negative modifier to the mage if he casts the spell using normal vision. If should get no modifier if using astral perception (unless the tank is also surrounded by FAB) but you can still give him the -2 penalty for hiding from the tank crew and dodging the shots that will follow.

I never realized that RAW implicitly suggest a mage can only provide Counterspelling dice to living persons, not to objects.

See this thread on counterspelling living creatures / inanimate objects.

The one unclear thing about object resistance, or any situation where one is mixing a threshold with staging based on hits is the issue of the hits needed to pass the threshold. Do they just vanish, and one start to count from that point onwards? Or do one count them into the staging (resulting in a all or nothing effect)?

Btw, i guess SR4A has a typo. It says that combat spells are resisted by armor*2 if the object has any. I suspect the word "indirect" should be added before "combat".

@Nath
As a matter of facts, I have never found any paragraph stating, that visibility modifiers apply to the use of magic. Could somebody help me out with that?

SR4A 177, under SPELLCASTING in the Sorcery section.

What teamwork, Sephiroth. Each of us runs and gets a different reference!

Because we can coordinate with each other without even knowing we're coordinating.

Wait a second...why doesn't the tank get to roll Body to soak?

Did I miss something?

First Rule of Combat: Geek the Mage First.

There's a reason for that.

Objects do not get a Soak against Direct Damage Spells... just Object Resistance...
They get to Soak against Indirect Damage Elemental Spells (which is where their Body and Armor comes in)...

Interesting. Well, I think that actually makes all but the sturdiest vehicles (BOD ~18-24+) better off than if they were just rolling Body to resist/soak damage. Based on the 3:1 ratio, I mean. Assuming 4-6 successes is reasonably generous.

Note that still by my count the tank might not, in fact, crumple. Also, using the (optional?) rules for increasing direct combat spell drain by net hits, the mage is soaking something in the vicinity of 7P drain. Let's look for instance at the Aztechnology (something unpronounceable) from War!. It has BODY 36. Unless I am again in error, this means that it has 26 Condition Monitor Boxes (8 + 18). This means that even TWO Force 9 Powerbolts (with nine successes) won't pop it.

It was my understanding that all vehicles had 10 boxes done and done.

Psychological remnants from older editions. 8+1/2 something is now the standard number of boxes for everything and every condition monitor (and it means a lot for tanks). Fourth edition just wasn't very clear about vehicles, but Anniversary edition is.

Goodness gracious, no. Body on vehicles works much the same as Body on characters. So there's no way a mage can total a tank with just one powerbolt unless he casts at like F20 or something.

A vehicle’s Condition Monitor has a number of boxes equal to 8 plus half the vehicle’s Body attribute (round up). A Body 3 vehicle, for example, has 10 boxes on its Condition Monitor.

Was there a "fix" in there to keep micrdrones from having at least 8 boxes?

Nope... Microdrones have 8 Boxes, just like weapons do (for the "Wreck Guns" Spell)...

Thanks gang that reaaallly makes me feel a bit more secure sending those multi million dollar tanks out against my team.

Third question: At most the Pulse spell should jam the comms on a tank right?

At most... But it is likely that the Mage will not be able to move the effect as fast as the tank moves, so, it is really not all that useful for Jamming Vehicles in my opinion

Indirect spells are like Hi-Ex Shells, not something you use against a hardened target. Direct Spells are like AP rounds, something you use primarily on hardened targets.

Priority of Targets (Infantry) for Tankers:

Target One: Magicians.

Target Two: The Troll with the Assault Cannon/Anti-Tank Weapon.

Target Three: The Big Ork with the Big Gun.

Target Four: The idiot with the Anti-Tank Mine on a stick.

Target Five: Everyone Else.

Powerbolt isn't really that overpower against a tank, as explained above.
But what about simply sending a random ghost, to materialise inside the tank, and kill the crew or whatever is inside there? Preferably a fire spirit. I would fear that much more from a mage than a powerbolt.
Is there any defense against that? Can you put a ward on a moving object like a tank?

Can a Possession Spirit take over a tank?

Because if you got one of J.E.B. Stuart, that would rock five kinds of awesome! (Let's see who gets the reference.).

...and this is why I elected to stay with 3rd ed.

By 3rd ed RAW:

Armoured vehicles received body and 1/2 armour added to the object resistance TN (8 for vehicles). Furthermore if the Armour rating exceeded the spell's force (which would be very common in the case of heavily armoured vehicles like tanks) the spell would have no effect. So trying to tag even a light tank like a Rhurmetall Frettichen (Body 10 Armour 22 - 3ed ed stats) would require a powerbolt cast at a force of 23 to hit on a base TN of 21 (subject to visibility/cover modifiers/other sustained spells) to cause any damage.

Were I a spellslinger in that situation, I'd defer to the chap with the ATGM or call in air support (and then cast my armour 6 spell and look for a good place to hide).

About the only ones who could wield that kind of spell power would be a GD and in that case, I'd have no argument.

actually p. 24 in running wild states following :



i think its easily transferable to drones. at least we use it at our table for drones too.

In my games: absolutely. (And i guess it is RAW, as long as the walls don't move in relation and you can make a simple form with the ward) I always asked myself if one coul have a ward on the OUTSIDE of a room, though. That would help against spells.

Also mana-static is a area effect spell... i wonder if one could allow the use of a different spell with the same effect to be centered on a moving sustaining focus. Have to look that up. But that would be an AWESOME defense against magic, even in low levels.

Oh, and also in my game i allow materializing of spirits only if they are (in the physical world) faster than the moving vehicle, AND can find a spot big enough to contain them... if they can't do it right: Ramming rules.

Hmm, Quickened Mana Static on expensive vehicles? Doable?

No. Mana Static is an Area effect. It will not move as the vehicle moves.

I did however design a targeted version of Mana Static. It is essentially identical, with the difference being affecting one target instead of an area, and allowing a Willpower + Counterspelling resistance test. Drain was the same as Mana Static (+2 [not Environmental] & -2 [not Area]).

The version my magician always used was an additional -2 Drain (Sustained, not Permanent), for a total of (F÷2)+2.

Not really that different from the effects of RL anti-tank weapons, that are more likely to make puree of the crew then make the tank go boom!

Except that Critters and Technology are not the same thing... If it works for you, then great, but Technology does not work that way...

Given the power level mages need to defeat tanks, I´d shoot the troll first. Consider what heavy weapons used with 7 hits can do, compared to a force 7 spell. Most mages in the world will find it impossible to touch tanks reliably, while AT weapons do their job. Target One: gauss rifle crew. On the high end it is easier to have massive dp´s for using guns than for spells.

Due to the nature of combined arms, with tanks being supported by mechanized infantry as they're supposed to be, the first rules of combat still applies: Geek the mage first!