Why did you need to quote him?

Never mind, I see your sig..

I've not disallowed aiming spells, usually the mage has less actions than everyone any way and spending what would amount to a turn aiming was never a big priority.

Looking at the rule though, I don't see how it is possible for most combat spells. The spellcaster needs to have a ready ranged weapon, the spell, but readying it means using it as it's instant duration. Non-combat spells mean no ready ranged weapon.

The only spell I can think of off the top of my head that is sustained and could be a ranged attack is Firewall. Again, why waste actions aiming it when you could just move it around? Let them use actions and aim to adjust its position (and lower the TN using the outcome from the original sorcery test to represent the greater damage from the concentrating the flames.)

Not all spellcasting, just elemental manipulations.

I'll try to add my reasoning. No guarantee that it's good resoning, of course...

1st bit: Mana and Physical Combat spells act the same. They don't work like a gun, grenade, or elemental manipulation. The spell works by (insert canon blah here) which involves syncronizing your spell with the target. The cover modifer for the guy hiding half-behind the desk has nothing to do with the structure of the desk, and everything to do with the fact that you can't see a good part of him, thus making the "syncronization" harder. Combat spells are not material, and do not 'travel' to the target. They also are not blasts or explosions of any sort.

2nd bit: Note that for area effect combat spells, (mana or physical), valid targets are determined purely by what you can see, not by what you can shoot at or through. The guy behind the paper screen is completely safe from the manaball. He's also safe from the first powerball, although said powerball will probably destroy the paper screen (cause you can see it). The guy on the other side of the 1 foot thick plexiglass wall is completely vulnerable to the manaball and powerball. Note that the opposite is the case for an elemental manipulation, which acts more like a gun or grenade.

The upshot is, if you are taking cover behind a desk, hope to god that a manaball is headed your way rather than a fireball - the desk hides you from the mage, which can protect you from the manaball, but the mage can just have a fireball (or grenade) go off on your side of the desk, and fry you even though he can't see you directly.

3rd bit: I would hope the guy behind the desk gets cover from the grenade as long as the desk is between him and the grenade (when it goes off, of course).

There are big differences between manipulations and combat spells. For example, if you see a guy around a corner because of one of those rounded security mirrors, you can use a combat spell to waste him around the corner. An elemental manipulation would just blow up/melt/smash the mirror.

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As an aside, anybody ever wonder what a powerball looks/sounds/smells like?
Do you suppose it sounds like _anything_ except whatever sounds disintigrating pavement/walls/floors/rugs/people make?

I'd say so, yes, with one caveat - I'd put a little distance between you and the cover. Remember your aura is big enough to poke through your clothes.

Personally if somebody was silly enough to hide under a sheet in combat, I'd just shoot them. (or use an elemental manip if I was out of ammo).

Further down again, it also states:

Yes, this does make TNs higher for mages.

On the other hand, you cannot dodge Combat Spells. You cannot add Combat Pool to resist them (only spell pool, *IF* allocated by another mage).

You cannot stage Combat Spells down, it's an all or nothing effect.

There is no armor, except magical that will reduce the effect of a Combat Spell.

The area effect Combat Spells make virtually no noise - a silenced grenade if you will. Wonderful for not drawing attention.

A magician is never unarmed. You can strip him/her naked and they still have impressive ranged combat powers. An invisible mage is damn hard to hit.

And if you are also a shamanic conjurer with spirits using their confusion power, they can increase the TN for resisting a spell, whereas confusion makes no difference for resisting damage from a mundane weapon.

Otherwise an ordinarly mage with a force 6 Stunball is going to take down an average group of people every time (average willpower being 3-4), unless you have a small army of mages allocating spell defense all the time.

One thing with this: you can only see an aura if you are astrally perceiving.

No astral perception, no aura to target the guy hiding under a sheet.

Do big baggy clown pants provide the clown with cover if you shoot him with a gun? No.

Then why would it provide cover if you target him with a spell?

Whether you can see an aura has absolutely nothing to do with casting a spell on the physical plane if you're not perceiving astrally.

Under combat spells, and individual descriptions of each combat spell there is NOTHING about whether you can see their aura or not, much less targeting their aura.

So WTF does their aura have to do with hitting someone with a stunbolt?

By this reasoning that you have to see their aura to target it means A: you must be astrally perceiving whenever you cast a combat spell, and B: Powerbolt/powerBall are useless against non living targets as they have no aura.

In my example, the sheet hanging from a clothesline that completely blocks your view of everything but the bottoms of the shoes of a character standing behind said sheet would indeed give him cover.

However, if the idiot takes the sheet down from the line, and wraps it around himself, then it is no longer cover, but clothing.

And no, cover, does not mean barrier, Bullets fly right through it. But magic can only affect what you see. Can't see the target? You can't affect it. Can only see part of the target? Then you have higher target numbers to hit, just like thrown weapons and ranged combat.

If you truly believe that wearing baggy clown pants count as cover against either magical or mundane ranged combat, then you must also think a long coat provides cover too.

Unless its one of those frosted shower curtians. Then he could zap ya! but there'd be a modifier b/c of the frosted effect and his visibility would be restricted.

Anyone with a gun has far more TN modifiers than any spellslinger.

So, if you don't want to bother number-crunching then why don't you do away with visibility modifiers, cover modifiers, smartlink bonuses, laser sight bonuses, ultra-sound sight bonuses, aiming bonuses, injury modifiers, camouflage, invisibility, ranged combat modifiers for moving, or target moving, Enhance Aim Spell, etc, etc.?

After all, we really don't want to slow the game down, right?

Lots of things in SR don't make sense. However, cover modifiers and spellcasting, if you look, are quite clearly defined - cover modifiers apply to sorcery tests. And they make perfect sense - if you can't see something completely (cover) and clearly (visibility), it's much harder to target something, whether it's with a gun, or magic.

You want to houserule that cover doesn't apply to magic, go ahead. But the game rules quite clearly explain that cover modifiers apply to Sorcery tests.

Can you cite a page number?

Same Thread, earlier Post, Page 150, right hand column, bottom of page, refering to mages trying to hit targets inside vehicles with spells:

Further down again, it also states:

New quotes:

Page 181, Spell Targeting, bottom right, last paragraph:

page 182, under Sorcery Test, 6th paragraph:

However, under Shadowrun Canon Companion, they have variable cover modifiers, from 1-4 depending on how much cover a target has. I won't go into those, but I find them a little more flexible than simply +4 for cover as per SR3 main book, as the more cover you have, the hard it should be to hit you, and conversely, the less cover, the lower the TN modifier.