Then could you maybe tell us what kind of modifiers they are, because their not stat modifiers, nor are they skill modifiers.
There really aren't that many different kind of modifiers in this game and as neither Specializations nor Foci fit in to any of the smaller categories, they are part of the big group of dice pool modifiers.

And of cource we have this nice quote from page 61 of SR4A "Unless otherwise stated, any modifier mentioned is considered to be a dice pool modifier".

Well in both cases it's things that were added into the book as errata after I got my copy, with no way of knowing it had been made outdated. And this wouldn't be the first time I'd seen people complaining about something being OP while blatantly ignoring major balancing factors. In this case though I have to hand it to the developers, they find new and interesting ways to break their system every time I turn around..

Check your book again, it was only ever a non-optional rule in the before-it-went-to-the-printer PDF.

As in, it was changed, due to discussions on this very forum, before it was official.

Even if that's the case, why is it such a huge sticking point? There are plenty of badly written rules out there, but this is the only one I see where one side is being heavily defended, and it just so happens that their version lets you double, triple, or quadruple up on bonuses.

There's an easy out that doesn't require violating some nonexistent professional code of tabletop RPG errata ethics.

As someone said previously, we can't talk about this stuff reasonably without some reasonable agreement on what we're talking about -- no house rules. Why are we forced to include a version of a mechanic that the game developers don't support as RAW, when that mechanic obviously breaks any semblance of balance in all the other mechanics we're discussing?

Sure, multicasting stunbolts can totally destroy high-Force spirits, if you use a version of multicasting that the developers don't support as RAW and lets you keep a third of your normal dice pool as a bonus to every roll no matter how many ways you split it. I'll grant you that. The fact that it has any bearing on anyone's game is kind of sad, though.

Yawn! Any chance of taking the off topic debate to another topic?

Because this is dumpshock. The cool thing about it that we don't have to accept anything. Just ignore the people who disagree with you (and by extension the developers) and move on. Then perhaps the OP can get the help he's looking for instead of a rehash of an ancient argument that isn't going to change anybody's mind about anything.

One of these things is not like the other.

Compare to:



And so on in that fashion.

It's easy to look at it the other way: 'of *course* things are balanced if you blatantly interpret everything in a way that makes them weaker!'. I give Tymeaus a hard time (in a friendly way ) about the way that his tables invariably have no problem with abuse of any rule, no matter how bad. The very fact that there's controversy over what the book even says, is itself imbalance, in that the rules fail to stop abuse. Right? So yes, we probably *play* with many house rules fixing everything, but you can't assume any of that when we discuss things together.

Good, Epicedion, but not good enough to get the writers off the hook. "Any attempt"? Is multicasting one attempt, or multi?

Eh, it matters for Magic. If "hey lookit what you can do with high Magic if you can multicast with a few billion positive modifiers on every piece of the split pool," then that's going to influence the overall power of the Magic attribute (the use of post-split modifiers actually serves to make the Magic attribute less important, since that Spellcasting Focus 3 is actually contributing 9 dice to your three-way stunbolt, making it the equivalent of Magic 9 for that purpose).

I have literally no idea what so ever what you trying to say.

But thank for posting the rule quotes, as you can see both the foci and specialization don't mention what kind of modifiers they are, so as the book tells us to do in situation like this, we consider them to be dicepool modifiers.

And, because I have no idea, how does this play out in Missions games?

High Magic is not a modifier, therefore High Magic is not the problem in a "lookit how I can manipulate the multicast rules" scenario. Sorry, but the argument is not pertinent to worries about high magic, as there is very little difference between someone with magic 5 and someone with magic 9 multicasting, regardless of which side of the argument the OP's group falls on.

Now sure, if the OP comes back and clarifies his concerns such that multicasting becomes a part of them, then it's relevant.

I'm not really letting the writers off the hook -- especially not since they essentially cut-and-paste those parts for 4A out of 4. I'll frown at them, but I'm not going to break the game just to prove a point.

Otherwise, the "any attempt" question is a good one. I'd side with one attempt, obviously, but I like to think I have a good reason: since multicasting is one complex action, it's one very complicated attempt to cast a number of spells. Even though you go down the list and roll for each spell test, technically they all happen at the same time. Otherwise you'd test for one, then Drain, then carry modifiers to the next spell. Since they don't happen sequentially (multiple attempts), they're all one attempt.

You tried looking into the "shoot two guns at once" split pool? It's almost possible to have more dice to each of two attempts than it is to put all your dice in one shot.

This I've got to see.

Or 2 simultaneous attempts. I'm just playing devil's advocate, but that's the point: you *can* interpret things the 'good way' or the 'bad way', but the fact that there's a choice is the problem.

Foci and specializations aren't listed as modifiers at all, in the way that every dice pool modifier in the game is. The book is full of "provides a modifier" and "gives a dice pool modifier equal to" and so on. Foci and specializations are, as far as I've been able to determine, the only places in the book where they do not use the word "modifier" or the phrase "dice pool modifier" to describe the process of adding dice to a pool.

The argument is (and this is supported by the FAQ), that this is an intentional terminology change to keep foci and specialization dice different from things like range, cover, and visibility modifiers.

The line on p61 stating that otherwise unidentified modifiers are dice pool modifiers is there specifically to distinguish them from threshold modifiers, so that people wouldn't see "-2 modifier" and not know whether to make that a dice pool or threshold modifier.

Mechanically, foci and specialization are not modifiers in the same sense, since the designers did not call them modifiers. They treated them differently.

EDIT: The phrase "dice pool modifier" appears in the book 214 times, and the word "modifier" appears 620 times.

It's not actually "more than" because the base skill+attribute is halved, but you can get really, really close.

(Stat+Skill)/2 + Specialization + Smart Link + Reflex Recorder + TacNet + ProbablySomethingI'mForgetting.

Oh okay, here I was expecting something like a bonus that only applies while firing multiple weapons that compensates for the splitting and gets you more dice on each shot.

Technically speaking, one could have a specialization in their gun skill of "multi-shot" (or whatever you want to call firing two or more guns in the same complex action). You'd get the +2 dice to each pool that you wouldn't get if you took only 1 shot (although in order to surpass your single shot DP you'd need to have a Skill + Stat of 3 or less).

*doesn't work, you specifically lose all bonuses from smartlik and laser pointer when shooting akimbo.
** is an actual skill increase, so is added before the split.

Touche. I never built a guns-akimbo sammie.

Because, as Yerameyahu states (and many others for that matter), the only things that matter in a Discussiuon about RAW, is the RAW itself. Nothing else matters, not even a developers OPINION on the matter. Want to change the RAW, submit an Eratta. FAQ's just do not cut it.

You could also say that about any rule that allows you to split the pools. Also, if you are not using the Nergative modifiers as applicable to each and every split, then you are doing it wrong as well. And since spellcasting uses Visibility modifiers (as well as several otherts), any not included are hampering your ability to control your table.

I don't get the argument people are making about multiple spellcasting, no where does it say you get to double dip with specilizations. SR4A pg.183 "Multiple spells may be cast with the same Complex Action, but to do so the magician must split her Spellcasting + Magic dice pool between each target." So, you split your dice pool, end of story. It doesn't say anywhere that anything applies to both rolls, simply that the pool is split.

Some supporting evidence: SR4A pg.60 "When a player makes a test, she rolls a number of dice equal to her dice pool. The dice pool is the sum of the relevant skill plus its linked attribute, plus or minus any modifiers that may apply". Modifiers are considered to be part of the total dice pool, which is, in fact, split as mentioned above.

So in short, someone having 6 magic, 4 spellcasting, 2 specialization, and 3 foci dice would be able to pull off an 8/7 split, not a 10/10.

I wasn't able to find the page earlier, but here's what I was looking for:



The section is about firing two weapons at the same time, however, this general rule would also apply to multi-casting spells.

The section on the book about firing two weapons is completely and totally irrelevant. Multiple spellcasting does not reference it, and visa-versa. Multiple spellcasting simple says you split the dice pool, and by definition a dice pool is all the dice you roll on a given test, including dice pool modifiers.

Hahahaha
Player: "ok, I cast fireball at Force 9000. My drain is 4500. Let's see, my drain resistance pool is 18 plus my 9000 initiation grades... you guys want me to roll this, or do I just take the average result?"

DM: "Dude, you realize that average results makes you explode into little giblets, right?"

Player: "Irrelevant! I simply MUST destroy this go-ganger! He opposed my will!"

DM: *glares at Player* "He wouldn't give you his bike for free, but he offered to sell it at cost! You've got trillions of nuyen!"

Player: "You have to take a hard line with these people."

DM: "Frag it. Your fireball ignites the atmosphere. An expanding wave of firey death swiftly spreads to encompass the entire planet, and the globe is scoured clean of all life. You die. The party dies. Everyone dies. Roll up new characters at 0 karma."

Player2: "I don't die."

Player3: "Me neither. Our characters are on Zurich Orbital ruling the corporate court, remember?"

DM: >_< "New characters! Now! 0 karma!"

Players: "Aww..."

See the Steps of Spellcasting.

Relevant part of STEP 3.
Multiple spells may be cast with the same Complex Action, but to do so the magician must split her
Spellcasting + Magic dice pool between each target.

Note: Notice that the Pool referenced above ONLY includes Stat + Skill. This is important.

STEP 4: MAKE SPELLCASTING TEST
Casting a spell requires a Complex Action. The Spellcaster rolls Spellcasting + Magic, modifed by foci, totem bonuses, bound spirits, and/or Visibility modifers.

Note: Notice NOW, how other modifiers are now added. This is important. If they were included in Step 3 (as you declare they should be), then you would have already split these dice (as they would have been included already), which you did not do. See? Simple. Never forget, Modifiers are always seperate from your pool, as they may not always apply. That is why they are called Modifiers.

So, you construct your Split Dice Pool (your Magic + Spellcasting), in your example: 10 Dice (Magic 6, Spellcasting 4). For your Maximum of 4 Spells (As many splits as you have Skill), you could split 3,3,2,2.

Then add all relevant modifiers to aactually make the test. So any Specailty, foci, totem bonuses, bound spirits, and/or Visibility modifers are then added/subtracted to the newly constructed base pool. So, assuming Specialty (+2), Foci (+2) and Mentor Spirit (+2), and No visibility Modifiers because you are targeting through Astral Perception, you now have Dice pools of 9,9,8,8. with +3 Drain to all relevant castings.

Works same for Gun Bunnies. Why would there be completely different rules for the exact same actions? Simple. There would not be. I know that previous editions frowned on that design principle, as they routinely had 87 different subsystems, dependant upon what you were doing. SR4A does not take that route. It is simpler and more elegant, at least in my opinion.

Anyways...

Tada!

It can easily be either way; that's the problem. It's also just as stupid for guns. A great *house rule* would be to smash both of these abuse cases.

Try anything that can deal with a magic 20 mage.

Congratulations for not reading it? You are making assumptions that have no basis in what is written down. Once again, you are mentioning the gun rules in the spellcasting rules, which have no bearing what so ever. I understand that you may think it's silly that the rules are different(IMO the rules need to be different to prevent abuse of the magic system), but the fact is they ARE different. You're weakening your argument by even bringing them up, so just stop.

Every dice pool in the game is listed by the attribute and skill (or sometimes attribute and attribute) that form the core of the dice pool. Dice pool modifiers exist that can modify the dice pool, up or down, beyond this number, but those are usually listed in an aside. In the end though, by definition, a dice pool is all the dice you are rolling for a test, modifiers and all. If you have 5 agility, 5 pistols, 2 from a specialization, and -2 from low visibility, your pistols + agility dice pool for that test is 10. If you have 5 magic, 4 spellcasting, 2 specilization, and 3 from a foci, your dice pool for a spellcasting + magic test is 14.

Since multi-casting just says it splits your dice pool, and your dice pool is created by a skill, attribute, and modifiers, the modifiers are likewise split as part of the pool.

Simple logic.

I dived into this thread late, and really don't want to read six pages of an argument I suspect has at least two entrenched sides. I will comment on how this post is structured, though.

In the above paragraph you chastise TJ for using the gun rules to support his position on magic pools, and then in the next ...

... you do the same thing yourself to show that the same structure applies to both mechanics, even though for the question of multiple shots/spells RAW explicitly says it doesn't. Which way is it? Is there a unified format across dice pool types or isn't there? If there is, TJ is right. If there isn't, the example in your second paragraph has no validity.

The system fails to identify the extra dice provided from foci and specialization as modifiers. You and others have decided they are, and that they're to be lumped in with dice pool modifiers, even though they don't use the word modifier to describe them. Even though in the same section where they don't identify six foci as providing modifiers they call a specific foci bonus a modifier. Even though there are 620 instances of the word modifier in the text. If they're not modifiers, then they can't be dice pool modifiers and therefore aren't to be applied after the split.

According to the rules, foci and specialization are just extra dice.

Compare this to Edge:



Is Edge a dice pool modifier? Is it included in the Magic + Spellcasting pool construction? No, it's extra dice.

Since Edge is an otherwise unaccounted for bonus (since it's not added directly to an Attribute or Skill), by your logic it should be a dice pool modifier and therefore be applied after the split, right?

Only if you consider two rolls to be "any one test". Instead of two tests.

Congratulations for not reading it? You are making an assumption that has no basis in what is written down.

I wish I could just post this picture in here to explain.

Your picture doesn't help, since that section in no way describes how to split the dice pool. Since Shadowrun doesn't have a general rule for splitting dice pools, that means you've simply decided to use another dice-splitting rule from a different part of the system.

EDIT: Specifically, the two-firearms rule explains when to split the pool and how to apply dice pool modifiers to the test. Spellcasting simply states that you "split the pool." You can try to go RAI with this, but RAW doesn't weigh in.

Look, it's like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You can't spread the PB on the bread, if the bread is still in the bag.

Well you can. But it makes a mess.

Step 3: split your [Spellcasting + Magic] dice
Step 4: add modifiers

Step 4 says explicitly to roll Spellcasting + Magic + modifiers, which, by omission, doesn't allow for a dice pool split. Your Legos don't fit together perfectly, and you're making tacit assumptions to get them to fit. You could just as easily state that the lack of information about modifiers in Casting Multiple Spells, by omission, does not allow for modifiers on split Spellcasting + Magic tests. Casting Multiple Spells directs you to make the split Spellcasting + Magic test, tells you how to resolve the tests (Step 5), and provides information for Drain (Step 6), but says nothing of modifiers or Step 4.

Sweet. If you're ever firing a lightning bolt blind, just shoot 2, gets rid of those pesky visibility modifiers.

Yeah, that's what I would do. The RAW is too ambiguous, so just call it a house rule. Foci may be magical, but I still don't think they should magically become twice (or more) as powerful, simply because you are splitting your dice.

Yes edge is added after the split, but only in to the pools you decide to use edge for, if your casting 4 spells and decide to use edge for all 4 rolls, then it's added to all for pools.
Only modifers applicable to any given pool is added to that pool.

From The American Heritage Dictionary
"
split
verb, split, split·ting, noun, adjective

to divide into distinct parts or portions (often followed by up ): We split up our rations.
"

The word split has an accepted word in the English language, and the book doesn't need to define every word in it. Either you don't understand English, or you just made a really bad argument for the sake of making an argument.



Step 4 never says anything about adding modifiers, it simple is there to instruct you on how to assemble your magic+spellcasting dice pool, and it happens to mention some of the more common modifiers. A dice pool, is, by definition, ALL dice you roll on a given test, specifically including dice pool modifiers.

So, if a dice pool = all the dice you roll on a test, and multi-casting requires you to split your dice pool, but logical extension multi-casting requires you to split all the dice you roll on a test. If it had specific language that said you included dice pool modifiers AFTER the split things would be different, but it doesn't, so the modifiers are split along with everything else(in fact it is a little telling that two gun combat specifically mentions to split before you add modifiers, and spellcasting doesn't, if they worked the same one would think they would be worded the same, but in any case is doesn't matter).

People are spending too much time trying to weasel false meanings out of the words of the book when the book states exact ally what it means.

Are we down to quoting the dictionary at each other now? That's never good.

There's something to be said for applying modifiers after splitting. For example, I'm throwing Stunbolts at dudes A and B. Dude B is standing in a dark place, with visibility modifiers; dude A isn't. In this case, it makes far more sense to apply the visibility modifier on my dice pool to 'bolt B after splitting that dicepool.

Double-dipping specialties and mentors seems a bit cheesy, but remember that you don't have to multicast the same spell; you can also throw both a Stunbolt and a Levitate spell. Your "Combat Spells" specialty and mentor would only apply to the Stunbolt, not to the Levitate.

---

Anyway, regarding the OT; I think it's imagining the wrong kind of problem. By the time a mage can buy Magic 9, other characters will also be ludicrously powerful. There won't be much reasonable opposition that stands a chance. SR simply wasn't designed for epic-level characters.

A mage who initiates that much might have acquired Cosmic Wisdom™, and decide that his talents are far, far to precious to risk on something as lousy and stupid as shadowrunning; you know the Inner Secrets of the Universe™, don't you have more important things to do? Like running a cabal of mages to impose your mysterious designs on the world. Epic wizards rarely use their talents in the field, they manipulate minions and long-term schemes instead.

Also you can get all kind of interesting cheese out of multicasting if you apply all the modifiers before splitting:
For example with Wise warrior mentor spirit i can get 1 extra dice for casting my stunbolt if i also cast a force 1 detection spell at the same time.
Actually, considering that indirect combat spells are affected by ranged combat modifiers, i can get 3 more extra dice for that stunbolt if i also cast a force 1 lightning bolt to the wall next to me.
So now multicasting gives me 4 more dice to cast my stunbolt then i would have if i only casted the stunbolt alone.
Actually i think i can also have a spirit use aid sorcery for detection to quite easily give an other 6 extra dices, taking me up to 10 extra dice from multicasting 3 spells.

The houserule that works with my group, that others here have disagreed with in the past is this:

When overcasting, Force of the spell is no longer divided by 2 before modifiers.

With that rule I still have overcasting come into play, but it is more of a true 'oh shit' technique than the common MO.

Again... If a Dice Pool add is not specified (as Specialization and Foci are not), then they are considered MODIFIERS... Right there in the book.

The MECHANICAL rule for splitting Dice Pools is in the Combat section. The Idea for Multiple Spellcasting is in the Next Chapter. What? You want them to keep reiterating a rule in every section that could apply? Not enough Word Count available for that.

The spellcasting steps I included above should cover the rest of the argument nicely.

- Split your Attribute + Skill Pool...
- Add Modifers to each of the split pools. (As has been noted, you can even cast spells from seperate categories in the same action. thus modifiers for each spell will be different.)
- Done

That's because splitting your pool is in step three.



If modifiers are before the split, yes! You'd just assign only 1 die to one of those spells, and the other one gets near full dice!



You shouldn't need to be instructed how to get your spellcasting pool. It's attribute + skill +/– modifiers, just like every other pool.

Also, it does talk about modifiers:
http://i53.tinypic.com/2ih2d90.png



Which is why dice pool modifiers (like specialization) come after the split, not before. Because your two different actions may have different modifiers!