One of the example uses of the Wreck (or any of the Ram family spells) is Vehicles.

So if you had say a Wreck: Vehicles spell, cast it at a Force 10...that's 10 points of damage going into a vehicle.

You could nail an un-modded bike and some of the low-end cars with that...but beyond that what are you going to do that actually makes a difference.

Unless I'm mis-remembering the magic rules; full disclosure; I dont usually play a magic user.

I don't know the spell off the top of my head, but if its a combat spell and it's force 10, the the base damage is 10.

I just remembered (and fixed) that.

Better than nothing… and a lot of weapons. And it ignores armor and Body, right? Assuming you beat OR.

It's just the limited version of Powerbolt, which I thought people loved for shooting cars.

Yeah, but you have to get through the threshold of dealing with a manufactured object, IIRC.

Also makes one of those armor mods in War! seem all the more effective, even if it does pollute the environment badly.

And, again, it's a prime reason why the first rule of combat is "Geek The Mage First".

Really?

If I'm using an assault rifle, Skill 4, Agility 4, Smartlink (10 dice pool), assume 4 hits, that's 10P. Second shot, assume 5 hits, that's 11P. So that's a total of 21P you've done to a vehicle with just two pulls of the trigger.


That's the only plus I can really see, but even then, most cars have a body ~10 but beyond that, you'll have to throw the spell multiple times to do serious damage. A GMC Bulldog is Body 16.

I can see how it might be useful against drones, but against other types of vehicles....I dont really see it.

Well...
Seeing how it is a Direct Damage spell there is no resistance roll. If you get enough hits to beat the object resistance threshold (should be 6+ for most vehicles) you do a base 10 damage not including net hits. I believe RAW says hits used to overcome the object resistance count toward net hits for damage so your talking about 16 damage to a vehicle. So your looking at taking down anything with a body of 16 or less with one spell (at 8+(1/2 body)). If you max out the hits your doing 20 damage which kills anything with a body of 24 or less. I would hardly call that weak or ineffectual...

Sure, but your assault rifle has to beat the armor and then is resisted by Body+Armor. And you're assuming more than average hits, and assuming that the target is standing still, with perfect visibility, no range penalties, etc.

So, it's more like 0P (if that Bulldog's driver gets a couple hits, or you have some penalties in place, so you fail to beat the armor) or 8P-(Body+Armor)/3 (expected Bulldog hits=8 )… 0P. The spell, on the other hand, has infinite range and ignores all that stuff.

I guess your point is that it's not a one-hit kill? *shrug* Oh well? I'm just glad it's not *more* effective, here in Magicrun.

Don't forget that Force 10 is Overcasting for pretty must the vast majority of magicians. That's resisting a lot of physical damage.

On the flip side, I'd be drekking my pants off in a tank that just got hit that hard from out of nowhere.

Get the Redundant Process Manufacturing modification for vehicles if you can, increasing that OR threshold to 7ish is going to be painful for a lot of casters.



-k

Where could I find that?

Is the ORT something you have to beat for the spell to effect the target or does it subtract from the effectiveness of the spell?

You have to meet the threshold for the spell to work on the target.
See page 183 of SR4A
A spell cast on a non-living, non-magic target is not resisted, as
the object has no life force and thus no connection to mana with
which to oppose the casting of the spell (note that only Physical spells
will affect non-living objects; mana spells have no effect). Highly processed
and artificial items are more difficult to affect than natural, organic
objects. Spells cast on non-living objects require a Success Test
with a threshold based on the type of object affected (see the Object
Resistance Table). Note that objects targeted by Combat spells get to
resist the damage as they would any ranged attack; use their Armor
rating x 2 (or just Armor against spells with elemental effects) to resist
the damage (Barriers, p. 166)
The section in bold does not matter because the spell is a Direct Combat spell.
I do not remember where I read that hits to overcome the OR count toward damage, maybe the FAQ?

I was also wrong in that the base Object Resistance is 6+ for vehicles... changes my numbers slightly but whatever... Changed the above post to match.

Well, the example needn't be Force 10. Force 6 is enough to seriously annoy vehicles that firearms are literally bouncing off of. Like I said, I'm just glad the magic isn't *better*. I don't even like magic, but I don't think the problem is that it's too weak.

Wreck/Powerbolt spells are very good against vehicles in the hands of a good mage - the catch is that there's a very small gray area between "totally worthless" and "one shotting vehicles." Modern vehicles are typically going to be OR 6, so if you have only, say, 12 dice, you've got only an 18% chance of affecting the vehicle (but if you get lucky or edge it, you can still do a huge amount of damage). At 20 dice, you have a 70% chance of the spell working, and spending edge practically guarantees it.

They do not. SR4A p204 2nd paragraph:

"Direct Combat spells cast against nonliving objects are treated as Success Tests; the caster must achieve enough hits to beat the item's Object Resistance (p. 183). Net hits increase damage as normal (the object does not get a resistance test.

every 3 points of damage give the driver a -1 modifier. that's a start. might not affect a decent rigger, but a pilot program will get into trouble...
and you can always make another shot, with a spell or a gun (since it's now harder to dodge for the vehicle)

Which makes a Magician in a Devil Rat or the Commander of a Tank using a simple armored Parascope a dangerous, dangerous thing.

Edit: I remember a novel with a T-Bird that had a Magician that used Fiberoptic "cameras" around the hull of the T-Bird/Panzer to cast spells at targets of opportunity.

Even a pretty lightly armored vehicles drop that to something around 7+8 = 15 damage and that is if we keep your very optimistic net hit values, more likely is something like 5 + 5 = 10P.
And if the vehicle has more armor then 11(for your optimistic scenario) or 8(for my more realistic scenario), the attack don't do any damage.
Whereas force 10 wreck vehicle spell with one net hit does 11P damage no matter how much armor and body the vehicle has.