+1

Liked your answer too ikarinokami

"In pathfinder for instance, you would be riduculed on the boards if you suggested using a direct damage spells"

I don't agree with that though, or if so the pathfinder people haven't used them as written and realised how effective they are.

ikarinokami, that's exactly my point, and why we shouldn't talk about it in this thread. I agree, mages are for utility. Everyone knows this, especially for D&D3.5. But we're talking about making the decision between a direct and an indirect spell, *assuming* you're making that decision. If you ask someone, if pie or cake is better, an appropriate answer is not, 'what a waste-of-time question, because ice cream beats both'. One can either work under the given assumption, or just keep saying, 'it doesn't matter anyway, don't bother, your discussion is stupid'.

A focused rules discussion is hardly an obsession. Neither is the decision to use mechanics instead of lazily delegating all the work to the GM a failure of imagination. Ditto requiring the GM to contrive situations that compensate for a mechanical imbalance. In theory, you could delegate *all* balance and stats to the GM, after all. Tabletop games are fundamentally about *not* doing that.

it is not that there aren't effective it's a effectiveness issue. a wizard in pathifnder can do more "damage" with battlefield control spells like- grease, web, stinking cloud, black tenacles, or summoned creatures, or illusions that direct damage spells.

I suppose that our fundemental disagreement is you see an unjust mechanical imbalance, and i don't.

1. the game assume based on its "fluff" that direct combat spells are just easier on mages than indirect spells.
2. direct spells are designed and inteded to be the work horse of your aresenal- it's your fastball if your pitcher, your rifle if your a marine, it has been specifically designed to handle 90% of the sitution you face. there is nothing wrong with that.
3. indirect spells have thier uses. drones which are common. enemies not in los- which should not be uncommon.

4. It is the job of the GM to create these situations that balance these needs. "contrieved? are you serious? if you watch soldier interviews, they will tell you they often they don't see whose firing at them, because for some reason, the enemy seems to think that shooting at people who can't see them is effective and safer. Drones contrieved? really, so a cheap obselete drone with a LMG is a contriveance? Our military would rather use a drone every chance it gets, because they are cheaper,and more fficeient, today than risking a soldier being killed, but in 2070 oh no lets not use these cheap obselete drones, lets sacrfice some of our gaag members who have the ability to make money, do work, excel and advance instead.

Gangers, corp sec, yaks and other opposition do not wake up in the morning and think let me be cannon fodder today. Enemies that take precautions and behave as if they would like to see tommorrow are not contrivences. They are essiential elements in creating a complelling combat scenerios for your players, and shockinly enough these scenerios increase the value of indirect spells. it's almost as if they planned it that way.

there are subjects in this game that warrant a rules discussion this is not one them- chase combat for instance is one.

If it were the case that direct combat spells were better than a gun, then prehaps you would have a point, but they are not, street sam, or something apporaitely skilled in more effective with a firearms or heavy weapons at combat.

I dunno if I should bother. :/ 1) We're specifically discussing altering the fluff. 2) 90%? There *is* something wrong with that. 3) Not enough. 4) Having no LOS yet having detailed location info is uncommon in any SR game I've seen. LOS is simply not hard to get; worst case, you wait for them. If the enemy is shooting at you (as in your example), then you'll almost certainly have LOS.

5) (Bonus!) There you go again declaring what is and isn't valid to discuss. You're right that we have different opinions, but that's allowed. If you're not interested in the topic, don't be involved.

Magic in SR is not like magic in D&D. In the older version of D&D, when I wanted to cast a magic missile (basically a powerbolt) you knew it. There were verbal or somatic components to spells and you could always tell that the mage was casting a spell. Yes, there were things you could take to removed those components, but for the most part you could tell the mage was casting.

In SR, there is no way to tell unless you have a spotter on the astral. There are no verbal or somatic components. The attack just happens. For direct combat that is. Therefore there is no dodge, you just resist the damage. However, for the indirect, there is a visual clue that the spell has been cast. There is also the problem of creating the construct at the end of the link to produce the extra elemental effect. Yes the drain is higher on the indirect combat spells, but that is because of all the extra stuff they do. Ignoring those extra things and trying to compare them directly is just ludicrous in my opinion.

I personally have no problems with the fluff or the rules as they stand now. I agree that direct combat spells are supposed to be the workhorse spells of the combat mage. They should take care of a lot of the situations that happen. I would agree that 90% is a little high, but it is up there. And no, I do not see a problem with that.

As for indirects not having enough uses, they can technically be used exclusively by a mage. A fire mage or an ice mage, or even an elemental mage could be done. You build it knowing that you will have a crap load of drain to contend with and you take nothing but indirect spells. It has been done in one of my games.

I really don't see the problem here, and for it to go 9 pages really boggles my mind.

Again, if you like everything as it stands, if you're not interested in the topic…

I agree with your agreement that 90% is a little high. I'm saying, let's try to bring that down to 65-75%. I don't think this is such a boggling opinion to have, that's all.

How many indirect-only elemental combat mages do people see? I bet it's a small number. Again, the only point of this *suggested rules variant* would be to raise that number a little, by lowering the degree to which those people feel screwed by such a choice. Build diversity is always a good thing.

Yerameyahu, perhaps we should have just made a new thread titled "Balancing direct and indirect: for those that see there is a problem." And in the description said "If you don't see a problem, don't bother posting because it doesn't concern you"

The problem with a lot of the proposed fixes is that they don't promote diversity, because they generally make indirect combat spells slightly more useful, while gimping direct combat spells to the point that they are not usable. Which is also where you get these tangents about other spells/magical options, because if you take away a mage's main offense, he will look for other ways to get the job done. Personally, I would be fine with making indirect combat spells a bit better, if the people doing it didn't have this grudge against direct combat spells.

Yes, but it's hard to get varied suggestions when all people can do is say, "that *particular* idea is stupid (and btw, how dare you even ask the question?)". It might also just be a question of *which* numbers. +4/-2? Big change. +1/-1? Subtler. That set of numbers might *also* be bad (I dunno), but there's obviously tweaking and brainstorming in the realm of possibility… right?

I never said I wasn't interested in the topic, otherwise I would not have read it through 9 pages. And I like hearing other peoples ideas. What my biggest complaint is about is I am still not sure what people are trying to accomplish. You say you want to balance direct and indirect combat spells. Why? What is the stated purpose in balancing them? Why do you feel that they are unbalanced? Are you not understanding how the numbers were derived? In 9 pages I have not seen a clearly stated reason as to why they are not balanced, so I do not have a clear understanding as to what we are trying to accomplish.

I feel I've answered that exact set of questions something like 6-12 times. Some people feel that, in the decision between direct and indirect, the frequency of use for indirect is too low (not nil, just too low); most recently, ikari said 90% as an example figure. Some people feel that the relative frequency of use should be nudged closer to 50% (not *at* 50%, just nearer); I gave 65-75% as an example figure. One (of many) proposed ways of nudging is to change how attractive they are drain-wise.

That's all there is to it: indirects are apparently underused, and diversity is a good thing.

The reason why they are not balanced are the resistance tests against living opponents. Without elemental effects, the drain on physical direct spells and indirect spells is equal (Street magic, p.163)*, but the effect on target is vastly superior for direct spells.

If we consider a typical human on the street (stats all 3) with 6/6 armor (e.g urban explorer jumpsuit) and no counterspelling, he defends against the (physical) direct spell with BOD. He has 3 dice to avoid the damage. If he is shot at with an indirect spell, he defends with REA + dodge (if he uses full defense). Then he soaks with BOD + Impact armor. That are 3 dice + dodge to avoid damage AND 9 dice to stage down the damage.

Both spells use a complex action, both spells have the same drain (F/2+1), but one is vastly superior to the other (in affecting living targets). If we would substitute the physical diret spell with a mana direct stun spell, the drain goes down by 2 and the spell is better at affecting living targets with higer BOD than WIL.

*
Base Drain: F/2
Physical Spell: +1 Drain
Physical Damage: +1 Drain
Direct/Indirect Spell: +/- 0 Drain

And thats just one facet of the issue.

The other is that indirect spells are undetectable so it has utility in its ability to remove a target stealthily. Whereas indirect spells have obvious signs or will otherwise easily notify enemies to your presence. This both puts the mage at greater risk (geek the mage first), and can destroy tactical advantage.

Also, its easier to do stun damage with mana spells (stunbolt/ball) which is an advantage in many instances.

Also, you can use mana spells (all combat spells that are also mana spells, are also direct combat spells) which can be used to target astral foes. There are no indirect mana spells

There are really only two points against direct spells: Object resistance, and Line of sight
Line of sight is of little value, and while OR can be a big pain in the but for direct spells, it really just takes the place of the defense roll that indirect spells get. If your spellcasting dicepool is decent, you'll still affect them about half the time.

The undetectable part is debateable (see SR4A p. 179, Noticing Magic), but it is way more stealthy than indirect spells.

But most of the time, you are better off just shooting a drone with a smartlinked, tac-netted, SA-modified super warhawk loaded with AV-Rounds than trying to kill it with indirect spells.

Then maybe it's time you can then begin to think about your answer not being enough ?

We all understand the goal is that frequency of indirect spell raises. We just don't understand why such a goal should be achieved. It has been answered "for game balance" and for variety. Then it has been argued that it had nothing to do with game balance, everyone having access to the same set of spell. And it's been said that the need for variety was a totally secondary goal to achieve in regard to having a coherent game world. i.e. maybe people should be aware of the differences with D&D.

Or maybe it's totally enough?

Anyway, that doesn't sound right. If your post is what you understood from the thread, I can understand your confusion. Some people do indeed want to nerf direct spells, but that's a separate issue (one that happened to get rolled in because tweaking the drain happens to affect both issues).

I can't imagine how 'variety' is an inadequate answer. Variety is good.

And I'm afraid I don't understand this 'coherent world' point? This is unrelated to D&D, and magic is arbitrary anyway. Whatever we say it is, goes.

Indeed, variety would be cool - but i never found an application for indirect spells that could not be solved more efficient with direct spells or just plain weapons.

Yes, excuse me, you should be praised for understanding people wanted to see indirect spell being used more frequently. Really, I think no one understood this was the point.



Glad you discovered you could house rule the game. The way magic works is as part of shadowrun as the way guns and cyberware and everything work. It has its definition and its logic.

Shadowrun is arbitrary. Whatever we say it is, goes.

I have done one or two over the years of SR4...

The point, Yerameyahu, is that Variety already exists. It is a choice. If you want the variety, then you choose the spells. If you don't actually choose the spells, you obviously do not want the variety, and the argument is there just to be there. And Magic in Shadowrun IS NOT arbitrary. It has rules that it follows. It is interesting to note (at least for me) that many of those who argue that the Indirect Spells are underused do so because they do not actually like the Fluff of the World itself. By the World view, Indirect Spells SHOULD be vastly less used.

My suggestion earlier was that, rather than making the two sets of spells equivalent, gimping one and slightly bettering the other until you have two sets of nearly-useless spells, you could make indirect spells better in their own way. Maybe bring the Drain down slightly, but play up elemental effects and make counterspelling only good for the soak roll (or even not at all - why should something that works essentially by astral interference work against something that is using magic to create an effect in the real world and lob it at someone?). Instead of trying to make grenade launchers exactly like heavy pistols, make them better at what they are supposed to do.

Then use them more frequently. You just have to understand that the way they are written (and for a reason, not just arbitrarily) they have more drain. They are different than direct combat spells. Why do they need to be changed?

There's no need to get all snarky, freudqo. Given that people specifically asked those questions more than once, I hope you're not accusing me of condescension for *answering* them. Frankly speaking: no, people apparently did *not* understand that making indirects a little more frequently used was the point.

I wish people wouldn't act superior for pointing out that the fluff is currently one way. The whole point, as has been said many times, is that we're *specifically* talking about altering the SR fluff re: indirect spells.

TJ, yes. As I said, it's an opinion that you don't have to *share*, you just have to acknowledge that it exists and people holding it aren't stupid or wrong. I'm not saying you said that, but forgarn and ikari don't seem to agree.

I agree, Glyph. Balancing (which doesn't mean 'make identical') the drain of direct and indirect is merely the most common suggestion for the issue of making the indirects' niche larger, not the only possible one. I certainly don't see the goal as making them identical (and/or useless), nor even making them identically common. Again, it's the same as with automatics vs. shotguns: automatics are going to be more flexible and more frequently-used, but people still talking about making shotguns a little better, a little more likely to be chosen and used.

Whatever the reason, forgarn, there is apparently a sense that the niche of indirects is too small. That's the assumption for this, and I don't have any reason to reject it until I see frequency data. So given that assumption, just hypothetically… what are some ways to alter it? I agree with you that *one* way to make indirects more used is to make their ideal situations (e.g. lots of drones) more common. I don't love that option, but it's one option. Personally, I feel like expanding their range of situations (critically, to reach into the 'people targets' zone) is a better approach (but there are obviously various other approaches as well).

No worries, Yerameyahu, I did not read anything into it. I just wanted to point it out...

Firstly I'm not opposed to house rules.. I'm opposed to dumb house rules like the one proposed earlier or Neraph's which nerf things so badly and severely that they just won't be used ever. The important thing is that each tool has a niche... the size of the niche I don't believe can be argued... because it's entirely dependent on the GM!!!



You keep saying this but it's dead wrong. While SR doesn't require specific gestures and the like to cast. All spells produce noticable effects. How noticable FOR ALL SPELLS is a function of what force they are cast at. The rules for noticing magic make no difference for spellcaster, target, etc. Even astrally perception provides a bonus to notice spellcasting, but is NOT A REQUIREMENT.

Some spells like armor or indirect combats even say outright what form this noticable takes (glows like a lightbulb). The exact form this perception takes is a function of the GM... maybe the caster gathers a glowing bit of mana... a shaman's easy because they exhibit a shamanic mask when they cast (+2 more dice to notice a shaman than a hermetic). So once again, you ignore the purview of the GM to arbitrate the rules and apply the situation as he sees fit. Instead make a blanket statement you can't notice these spells at all when the rules state otherwise! The problem isn't that there isn't a noticable effect, it's the GM not applying this.

Even possession the target of the possession unless realistic form is in play exhibits clearly magical signs that he is possessed. The threshold to notice is 6-Force, for everything. Under 3rd edition you might have had a case... perception TN was 4+Magic-Force (so a very high mage could do things very subtly... low magic people would produce quite vulgar effects were quite noticable on the target and the caster).


I even see other egregious errors such as you successfully mob mind a crowd... but they shoot you before you get commands off. Which is wrong. You control their minds they don't do anything you don't tell them to. Spell says you direct EVERYTHING they do. They don't continue to do things until you give orders. The lesser "Mob Control" merely gains control of their bodies and not their minds which would stop the shooting. The better version gets both their mind and their body.




And I disagree very strongly with this 90% of situation nonsense. The percentage is PURELY a function of GM opposition. If your GM uses 100% drones for defense... then stunbolt is worthless (as is manabolt) as it only works on 0% of the targets. (Obviously most people use a mix, what mix is the question). The only contender really for any of this is Powerbolt!!! (since powerbolt can affect the same target list that an indirect can). I showed mathematically in another thread that merely using the published optional rule... the damage came out in favor of the indirect elemental for equal levels of drain. Completely ignoring secondary elemental effects (such as making the drones ammo blow up or fuel ignite or similar). Most of the problems with direct spells come from the damage increases for free, so the caster can keep the force (and drain) low, while still achieving 1 shot utility. (2 shots of SnS vs 1 stunbolt... the target goes down either way and the mage may take some drain.... all is right with the world. Force 11... 4 drain... which averages about a half point of physical for most mages (compared to the hold-out pistol which takes no drain).



Similarly... it is possible to make up nearly identical spells which I've stated many times in here and consistently gets ignored. You can make an indirect single target indirect spell for +1 drain code, exactly the same as powerbolt (single target, physical +1). Similarly, you can make a physical version of powerbolt which only deals stun for +0 drain (+1physical, 0LOS, -1stun). One of my favorites is a spell version of a stun grenade... physical, +2 drain code, no elemental effect. (LOS-area +2, Physical +1, stun -1). -2 penalty to reaction to avoid area effect, as a spellcaster my spellcasting dice are far better than my thrown dice (and no scatter). Everything seen or unseen gets blasted for stun damage. (NB: the rules for damaging barriers make no difference between stun and physical. Only vehicles have that immunity; it's merely the difference between a pressure cooker type effect and a wall of air blast wave type effect).


My other issue is that the spell crafting rules give very little leeway here for much to change. Adding elemental effect is +2 more drain to any spell. Dropping that to 0 strikes me as very wrong. (something for nothing). I've found that the stunblast spell described above works very well in actual practice. (also been known to levitate grenades into position then punch the remote detonator). Some of the elemental effects such as 'sound' are actually quite devastating! Sound is a great example... with sound... armor is ignored, the damage is stun (resisted by body only). If the damage exceeds willpower the target is nauseated (unable to perform any actions for 3 combat turns and has wound penalties doubled). You don't even need to wait an hour til they heal some stun and wake up.

For those reasons, and other elemental effects as well. I don't need to do enough fire damage to destroy the drone... only need to do enough to set off it's ammo bins/fuel tank. Other examples can follow from these... I can't see reducing the elemental damage drain modifier by more than a point. +2 -> +1. And that only if you change the fluff and setting to make them more common.


And to take the example above of using min(Magic,force). Okay... I have magic 5... I multi-cast 2 force 5 spells.. problem solved target goes down... I take little to no drain and the target takes 12+ stun. He hasn't solved his problem at all. Only hasn't run into people who know how to work the system. That's one of the same criticisms of the optional direct drain rule. All he's done is short of multicasting is ensure a single mage will pretty much never be able to one shot knock out a target... since rule #1 of combat is geek the mage... the ability to eliminate targets before they can.



Really I've seen very few workable solutions... and most of them deal with changing the rules regarding direct combat spells, not futzing with their drain codes to make them unusable. The drain normally does increase as a side effect of higher force/multicasting though.

The most workable one I've seen done a few times... was simply to roll willpower/body a second time to soak damage.

But in the end this really doesn't do much more than the optional rule does. Instead of using force 7 or 9 + net hits to knock/out kill the target. Force is dialed up to 9 or 11 + net hits... to offset the extra you need for the soak.

Limiting the high end damage, simply results in multi-casting being more common.

We've toyed with increasing drain for all spells overcasting as well. An extra 1/2 point per point of force over magic. This works reasonably well in fact.

But overall, we've generally found toying with rules and playtesting various things is that spells generally aren't the problem... it's spirits and critter powers (especially at high force).

I'll never understand folks who want to make magic less fun in shadowrun. More balanced with the rest of the game? Fuck yeah, I'm on board. The whole 'Magic must be bland and general, or you should die' variety bores me to tears though.

Falconer, do any of the drones even run on flammable fuel? Making their ammo explode sounds like GM-fiat to me, but who knows. Still, if the only variable is 'how many drones does the GM use?', that inherently seems like a problem to me. Anyway. I appreciate the way you mention and react to a number of different approaches (whether any are perfect solutions is not the issue). *That* is what's called for, not just dismissing the question. You may be right to say that the setup of the magic system simply precludes any nice, uncomplicated adjustment; and you could also be right that the desired effect really, truly is just a player ignorance/GM playstyle issue at heart. These are the kind of conclusions that discussion leads to.

almost normal, no one said anything like that. Thanks for your typical level of contribution.

Edit : not fucking worth it. Never thought id have to ignore someone, but.the.repeated obnoxious trolling just isn't worth looking at.

It's up to the GM to determine what effect the spell has. Indirect spells can be targetted unlike direct combat spells. Steel Lynx, doberman, LEBD, etc... all have external weapons. That means an external weapons feed from the belted ammo bin. Called shot going for the ammo feed from the ammo bin. Then read the secondary effects of fire elemental effects and you tell me if that's merely GM fiat. Especially with how many people love caseless ammo in SR! Page 164-165 SR4a.

"The GM decides which items have caught fire and continue to burn -- as a rule of thumb, any item with a (modified) armor rating less than the fire DV has caught fire." ... "Ammunition and explosives may explode."

Ever see a lithium battery burn or explode?! It's not pretty. So it doesn't even need to be fuel. The reasons fuel/batteries are dangerous is that they store potential energy, the more compact the energy source the more dangerous it is!

You flamethrower say guards... they're burning... how much shooting back at you do you think they'll be doing... how much panic'ed trying to get out of burning gear? Composure test? etc... This is why I say that people forget the elemental effects themselves are powerful.

Electricity -2 penalty to everything they do for a few rounds whether or not it works or is soaked to zero (something I don't agree with either). If it's a drone... body + armor... if it gets less successes than the attack did... the drone shuts down.



The problem Yera, is that people simply don't like *HOW* the optional rule works... it encourages overcasting/multicasting etc. So they simply do it a different way which results in the exact same thing! Or they show zero mathematical ability and increase the drain to stupidly high levels and ignore everything else.

I'm not hostile to house rules, but you get too many of them and stop playing the same game as everyone else... and situations which shouldn't require house rules do because you've altered the system too much.

I do agree. I don't think I've seen a good mechanical suggestion, as you say, and I'm open to the possibility that one simply doesn't exist. But threads like this are precisely where we share and analyze those suggestions (just as you have, albeit with some fervor at times). So my issue was the implication that it's all a stupid waste of time to even think about. I do also understand why you're playing up the elemental effects: your actual point is something like 'a good solution for this is actually to alter the GM, not the game'. That's different from the other GM-change point ('just use tons of drones'), and it's a one I didn't get earlier.

Re: electricity specifically, it *is* a powerful effect. I think most people rule that tasers have the same effect, which dilutes Lightning Bolt's specialness; I'd be happy to say tasers do nothing to drones, myself.

Called shot only works for shooting weapons and melee weapons. Personally I would however allow called shot with elemental combat spells.

@Yera: That does not need to be ruled, by the RAW tasers to electricity damage


SYL

Incorrect Apple. The indirect combat spell rules state to treat as normal ranged attacks... it's left grey that this includes called shots.

SR4a FAQ.
Is it possible to use the called shot rule (p. 161, SR4A) with Indirect Combat spells? If so, can you Take Aim (p.148, SR4A)?

Yes, you can make a Called Shot with an Indirect Combat spell. However, since Taking Aim is a Simple Action and casting a spell is a Complex Action, you cannot do both in the same Action Phase; instead you would have to Take Aim before and then cast the spell. Use the character’s Spellcasting Skill when determining how many sequential Take Aim actions may be taken.

apple, my point is that I'd intentionally *not* have them do it to vehicles. They do stun damage and are designed for meatbags. RAW is frequently wrong.

Yeah, Called Shots and their effects is all GM territory, though. I feel like they'd normally say yes, (and it's a nice benefit for the indirect), but you can't always just assume.

This comes from reading the novels I think. In all of those, whenever someone casts stunball, and its described from someone elses perspective, everyone just keels over and nobody ever saw any attack.

So perhaps my perspective on the matter is colored by....oh hey thats fluff.

I hate to break it to you, ZeroPoint, but the fiction is just the fiction and is *not* fluff. Some of the published fiction may be truer to the rules than others, but the rules are often ignored to better tell the story. Do not try to improve your understanding of the rules through the fiction, that way lies madness (and complete misunderstanding of the rules) ...

Strictly by the rules: all spells are perceivable as they are cast at the location they are cast. Not all spells are perceivable simply by being in effect or at the location of their target. Armor, for example, has an ongoing visible effect on the target. Increase Agility does not. Likewise, Fireball creates a visible effect at the target area, whereas Stunball does not (even though both create a perceivable effect at the caster as they are cast).

(Emphasis mine). +1

Perhaps, as some of us have been suggesting all along, if the elemental effects were actually used properly (or played up if your GM ignores them, which seems to be the case for a lot of the naysayers, and yes Yera, I am looking at your post #229) then you might find indirect spells used more often at your table.

Depending on your table a slight tweak to the drain of directs/indirects (+1/-1) might not be the end of the world, but rather than trying to bring the drain codes together ("Should I go Powerbolt flavour, or Flamethrower flavour for that 3 drain?"), you should look at other ways to beef up indirects, such as making counterspelling ineffective against it and/or going destructively cinematic on the elemental effects.

This was totally true in SR4. In SR4A it gets a bit more complicated. The update introduced what I call sparkles, a visible effect around not on the caster. How far this effect extends is never mentioned. I prefer the SR4 indicators (look of concentration, sweat). It fits much better with the fluff (Magic is invisible to normal perception).

@Midas: I think I suggested removing Counterspelling form Indirect Combat Spells a few pages back. I like the idea. Unfortunately I don't have an SR group at the moment so I can't test it. If that is too powerful, make those spells exactly like their mundane counterparts (i.e. ItNW, Regeneration apply).

For noticing spells, the roll is really to spot the spellcaster. This is separate from the effects of the spell. In other words, one spell might make a few people suddenly drop, or stare blankly, while another spell might cause a massive eruption of searing flame that set everything on fire, cooks off people's ammo, and causes a few cars to blow up. But if they are of the same force, then people make the same roll to spot the guy slightly glowing or wiggling his fingers.

Like I said, Midas, if you actually read the rules under Fire Damage, it says 'the GM decides', 'the GM's discretion', etc. like 6 times. That's what I meant in #229 when I said 'sounds like GM-fiat'… because 'the GM decides' and 'GM discretion' are GM-fiat. I do tend to prefer more crunchy solutions.

I won't accuse you of condescension if you're sincerely proud of pointing the obvious.



Now, this is condescending. A condescending answer would be to say : the whole point is D&D frustrated people who whine for their fireball spell.

Condescending and wrong, notice. Most people proposing to alter drain codes don't care at all about the fluff, they specifically talk about seeing much more fireball (and this make some people wonder why they want it in the first place). If this changes the logic of magic, they don't care and say stuff like "meaningless fluff you can wipe out at a glimpse". Or some even point the obvious saying rules are arbitrary.

Although, as Falconer mentioned, SR4a does mention ammo being set off as an example. I agree with you though, the BBB really should have gone over all elemental effects and given some crunchy rules for each one so everyone would be on the same page.

Well, the FAQ is sometimes not an errata. I am afraid that the rules are pretty clear on this.



In this case the FAQ contradicts / expands the rules, which should normally be a part of an errata, not of a FAQ. But as I said earlier, I myself use this "FAQ houserule" and it makes indirect spells indeed far more viable compared to direct combat spells. I just wanted to point out precise ruling.

SYL

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. The fluff *doesn't* matter, that *is* the point. There's no question at all of 'the logic of magic'. Magic *is* arbitrary, by which I meant that we can easily alter the rules, unlike for realistic things like firearms. With firearms, we could not, as Glyph mentioned, make heavy pistols into grenade launchers. People would asked, 'wtf, why is this pistol as strong as a grenade launcher?' With magic, there is no such issue. I dunno why you're taking an attitude about it, either; if you simply disagree, say so, but it's not a moral decision. If you just think that people haven't been talking about this Red Herring fluff issue, that's wrong.

Apple:
Actually no the FAQ doesn't contradict the RAW in this case. It does exactly what a FAQ should do, clarify a grey area of the rules. Where does the RAW say that indirect spells are not valid for called or take aim? Since the rules don't state this the FAQ does not directly contradict.

p204 SR4a
"Hence Indirect Spells are handled as ranged attacks and..."
p161
"A character can only make a called shot with weapons that fire in single-shot, semi-auto, and burst-fire modes as well as melee weapons."

It's treated as a ranged attack which fires a single shot. Spells aren't addressed in the combat section. So it's grey and unclear.

I won't say the FAQ doesn't contradict anywhere, there are 3 points I can think it does. (Mystic Adept magic rating as regards adept powers (though not necessarily spells), splitting dice pools, and regaining essence lost from HMMVV). In all other cases it does a pretty good job of clarifying grey areas of the rules. The rules state to treat indirects as ranged attacks... ranged attacks are allowed to be called/aimed... but how far does this treating like a ranged attack extend? (that's grey, the books don't say yea or nay).

Yes, like everyone think the way firearms work is perfectly realistic and all .

For a reminder, the only point I made earlier was that if people were curious of why one would change the way direct and indirect spells work, it was not because they didn't understand that some would prefer to see more fireballs. I said that those people were actually wondering why one would actually want to see more fireballs since it's clearly implied that they are not common spells in the shadowrun world, for clear and logic reasons, and they clearly appear like an exhausting and stupidly flashy way to kill people.

Glad you discovered I had a different opinion from yours on the "fluff" importance. And glad to discover that you give me the right to despite the use of so many asterisks to enforce your affirmations. I will try the same then : the fluff *does* matter, that *is* the point.

If you decide that in your games heavy pistols are grenade launchers, no one will forbid you to do so. There are even ways to explain it, by 2070. It just doesn't fit shadowrun's description of 2070's firearm. It's the same with magic. You're just explaining us we can houserule magic to have it different. Thanks a lot for it, no one could figure it out.

I don't think I said 'perfectly', but yes, elements of the setting that are based in reality clearly have less room for major changes. If the pistol is stronger than a 'sniper rifle', people are going to reject that as inconsistent. This is not the same as magic, because magic is arbitrary.
This is merely the current fluff, which some people would explicitly like to change. Despite what you say, you're clearly having trouble with this point. As I said, I'm doing nothing but answering questions that were directly asked, so if you have a problem with it, blame the questions.

Your argument appears to be 'no, you can't have house fluff'. This makes no sense. As with TJ, it's one thing to say, 'I like the current fluff'. It's quite another to say, 'the current fluff can't be changed'. Magic in particular is easy to change in this way, because it's not grounded in even 'semi-realism'.

Regardless, the specific bit of fluff that indirects are more draining is only relevant to the specific suggestions that alter the drain codes. There are several suggestions in the thread that have nothing to do with drain (including 'buff indirects', 'use more drones', and 'highlight elemental effects'). These only need to slightly alter a different bit of fluff, 'indirects are rarer'. This is even easier, because it's so vague. If the direct-to-indirect frequency ratio went from (just for example) 90:10 to 75:25, they'd still be rarer. No one would freak out and say 'this doesn't fit the world', again unlike the firearms example.

Rarity is SO dependant upon table, too. We see a fair amount of Indirect Spells at our table, though in comparison, they are still fairly rare. We (Our Table) likely fall into the 75/25 Split (maybe even 70/30). Because of this, it is very hard to reach a consensus, as the various sides seem to be arguing from different base assumptions. Too, our application of the Elemental Effects seems to be more prevelant than at other tables, because we DO play up the elemental effects a lot. This likely informs my position that the rules are good as they are. However, as can be seen, not all tables operate like ours does. Some, even, could care less about the fluff (Rarity, Difficulty) of the Direct/Indirect comparison and would rather see the spells of about equal utility (even if that drastically alters the way magic works in game). Everyone is different.

That being said, I have to agree with Falconer that the current discussions on options have fallen far short of the mark of attaining the goal being sought. Like Yerameyahu mentioned (pretty sure it was him), it may not be possible to mechanically get there. Maybe an alteration of the fluff might result in better results. Hard to say... *Shrug*