The drain on the first one should be +5. That's based off +0 for Invisibility's single-sense, +1 for each additional sense you're trying to hide, and +1 for it affecting technology.

I thought the drain was off too, but using the spell-creation rules in SM, I think the drain is accurate. Rules for drain are a little too lax on multi-sense and so on, imo...

• Physical +1
• Realistic +0
• Multi-Sense +0
• Illusion Hides or Conceals +2
• Touch -2

Total drain: (F/2) + 1

The Rule of Common Sense says that he shouldn't be able to combine the effects of two existing spells into one spell for the same Drain Value or less than either spell. He's combining Improved Invisibility with Stealth, with bonus effects stacked on top.

The Rule of Common Sense says that he shouldn't be able to combine the effects of two existing spells into one spell for the same Drain Value or less than either spell. He's combining Improved Invisibility with Stealth, with bonus effects stacked on top.

The Limits of Sorcery
Though spells can create many amazing effects, the power of sorcery in the Sixth World does have limits. Some of these limitations may be inherent in the nature of magic; others may simply be conditions magical theorists have yet to find a way around. Currently, sorcery obeys the following limitations, which form the base-line assumptions according to which all spells in this and other Shadowrun books were created. Players and gamemasters may choose to ignore or alter any or all of these assumptions, but doing so may unbalance their game.

Sorcery Cannot Affect Anything to which the User Does Not Have a Magical Link.
In the case of spellcasting, this link is provided by line of sight: the visual image of the target provides the magical connection between the caster and the target of the spell. For ritual sorcery, a sympathetic link (see p. 28) can provide the magical connection, in addition to standard line of sight or a ritual spotter. Without this link, sorcery cannot affect a target.

Sorcery Cannot Alter the Fabric of the Space/Time Continuum.
Spells cannot directly change distance or the passage of time. Teleportation and time travel are the holy grails of magical R&D departments the world over, but no one has been able to unravel the knotty problem of affecting space or time with magic. Spells can speed up or slow down processes, such as healing or chemical reactions, and allow subjects to move quickly, but they cannot directly alter time or space.

Sorcery Cannot Divine the Future with any Certainty.
Spells are rooted in the same present as their caster and cannot pierce the veil of time to predict the future with any great accuracy. Reliable techniques of long-range precognition do not exist. Spells designed to predict the future only provide clues and hints about possible events, and then only over a short span of time. The further into the future one attempts to divine, the more unreliable the results.

Sorcery Cannot Summon or Banish Spirits.
These abilities are the province of the art of Conjuring. Spells can, however, be used to damage or affect spirits or to create barriers that block or contain them.

Sorcery Cannot Raise the Dead
Though spells can heal, once a person has passed away, they are gone forever (though some view conjuring spirits as raising the spirits of the dead).

Sorcery Cannot Create Magical Items
Foci, vessels, and other items imbued with magic may not be crafted with spells; such handiwork requires the hands-on efforts of an enchanter.

Sorcery Cannot Bridge the Gap between the Astral and Physical Planes
Spells only have an effect in the plane on which they are cast. Spells cast on the astral have no effect on the physical, and vice versa. Likewise, spells cast in the astral or physical have no effect on the metaplanes, and vice versa.

Sorcery Cannot Create Complex Things
Though spellcraft can transform energy, spark elemental forces, and even provide nutrition, no magicians have yet determined a way for sorcery to create complex items (such as a gun or even a hammer) from mana alone—despite the best efforts of research corps to date. Sorcery can be used to fix and sometimes transmute complex items, but the days of summoning weapons from nowhere have not yet arrived.

Magic Is Not Intelligent.
Mana only does as it is told when manipulated by Magical skills such as Sorcery. Magical effects do not make independent decisions.

@ Glyph and Epicedion: Read the spell creation rules before commenting on them.

No, he's not. Anyone who wants to perceive the target must first resist the spell. If they fail, the Perception threshold is set by the spell. If they succeed, there is no effect as per Illusion mechanics. The spell does still have a few problems, as I outlined above.

Keep in mind that the gamemaster always has final approval over whether or not a new spell will be allowed into her game.

The most glaring problem is the lack of importance for Force or spellcasting Hits - they do nothing.

some quick thoughts:

Animus:
I don't understand this one. The spellcaster can change sex, but not race, general features, hair, eyes, skin, height or weight? So the caster can change genitalia, basically? But also any individual looking at the caster sees a family resemblance, thinking the caster is a twin sibling? Hmmmm. It sounds like a mana spell, since it seems like it (mostly?) clouds the minds of those perceiving the caster. And how is this spell more useful than the Mask / Phy Mask spells? Could be, I just don't see it...

The drain on the first one should be +5. That's based off +0 for Invisibility's single-sense, +1 for each additional sense you're trying to hide, and +1 for it affecting technology.

Also, if it's going to make you invisible to cameras, and stuff, shouldn't that only work if you had enough net hits to beat the camera's Object Resistance Rating? I mean a spell that makes you invisible to MAD Scanners, and Drones that's pretty damned awesome for f/2+1

The animus spell, what ever it's just a shapeshift spell under a different name.

But the Fade just like invis or improved invis are very unbalancing. I made a house rule that every time your struck in combat or attack the power of the spell decreases by one until you become visible. Otherwise you have invisible armys running around killing everything and never being seen. I hate invisibility with a passion it's one of those spells that's too good to not have.

Got a character with close on 30 spells, still have no Illusion or Combat Spells. So it is not a Must Have, by any means.

Maybe but the group I play with at least one mage always has it and it's the first spell ever cast.

Actually, when I have to choose, I'll pick Trid Phantasm over Invisibility. It's one thing to conceal yourself, it's something else entirely when you can 'edit out' an entire shadowrun group using an interactive, dynamic illusion. Sure, the drain's reasonably higher, but you can mess around with the appearance of the environment with Trid Phantasm. Blood stains on the floor? Erased. A knocked out security guard? That's actually a sofa. Very, very handy.

Interesting. Not one mage in our current group even has Invisibility (Improved or otherwise) or Mask (Improved or otherwise).

In our group, the first spells cast are usually Health Spells of one sort or another.
Mine are usually Manipulation or Detection Spells...

And I, too, prefer Trid Phantasm over Invisibility. Not for the same reasons, mind you. It is infintely more useful in my opinion.

Why bother F3 improved invis on the group you don't even have to worry about blood stains and knocked out guards just walk by the guards don't ingage them and have the hacker open doors for you form across the street. Most Surveillance won't pick you up and most the mook guards won't have enough dice to beat a 3 threshold anyway. Unless it's very high security there's not likely a risk of ultra wideband radar being used or magic support. Walk in walk out.

I guess your group has a different style of play. Mine is big on invis

Relying upon that can get you killed, though. A previous character of ours relied upon that philosophy, and learned a horrible lesson about probabilities. It was not pretty.

Just use cameras, period. They should be embedded in your clothing on all sides.

Invisibility doesn't mask your scent, which is why some corps have dogs on patrol runs. Heck, some of 'em even go to the expense of giving 'em cyber. Send a pair of dobermans with wired reflexes at the mage, he'll have to come up with something better than "hide in plain sight".

Another one mentioned was sympathetic damage - a Health Spell which causes the target to take the same damage the caster has suffered, soaking it with raw Body and no armour if the caster gets hurt.

I would make that a Direct Combat spell, initially resisted with Willpower + Counterspelling. Use the net hits + Force as a limit on how much damage would transfer, and require the spell to be Sustained, so that the sympathetic link breaks if the caster lets it lapse. Changing the spell type would automatically add the "no armor" part.

You could also have two versions: a touch version and an LOS one. (I'd recommend against an area version, though it's not outside the realm of possibility.)

It would basically be identical to a Stunbolt or Manabolt spell, except that doing damage would be dependent on taking damage -- making this more of a threat than an actual attack. Thinking on it this way, the Drain Value should be less than the standard neem-the-bad-guy spell. I'd add a caveat that damage from Drain wouldn't trigger the effect, or the caster would start overcasting like there's no tomorrow.

Call it something like "Share Pain".

The problem is that Combat Spells can only have a duration of Instant -- something which annoys me, because I could easily see a sustained combat spell (Firestorm, Flamethrower, Drown). So, that leaves Anti-Health spells, I think.

And I love the word 'neem' used in this context.

The *possibility*? A sustained spell would either be a single target (hold until he's dead), or area (hold until he's dead, move to new target, repeat forever). How could that be not be 'exploited'?

I would make that a Direct Combat spell, initially resisted with Willpower + Counterspelling. Use the net hits + Force as a limit on how much damage would transfer, and require the spell to be Sustained, so that the sympathetic link breaks if the caster lets it lapse. Changing the spell type would automatically add the "no armor" part.

You could also have two versions: a touch version and an LOS one. (I'd recommend against an area version, though it's not outside the realm of possibility.)

It would basically be identical to a Stunbolt or Manabolt spell, except that doing damage would be dependent on taking damage -- making this more of a threat than an actual attack. Thinking on it this way, the Drain Value should be less than the standard neem-the-bad-guy spell. I'd add a caveat that damage from Drain wouldn't trigger the effect, or the caster would start overcasting like there's no tomorrow.

Call it something like "Share Pain".