FULL DISCLOSURE: It's a rule decision I'm still not 100% behind, personally, and might even be houseruling in my home game, so I might be misrepresenting the rationale. If so, for the folks that are 100% behind it, I apologize. Come explain it better than I (grudgingly) can.

It's my understanding that the desire was to cut down on the number of die rolls that bogged down a fight. Making multiple attacks less attractive/convenient meant any given person's turn should be over with, and moving on to the next player, much more quickly and cleanly. So a single shot is (arguably) more lethal now, so that any given shooter is still dangerous...but he's not attacking two or three or four times with each action phase, so that while there are still huge handfuls of dice being rolled, said handfuls of dice are being rolled less often, so that the action keeps moving and other players all get to take a turn.

Sendaz. On the preview material it doesn't say your magic goes up when you initiate, only that you Maximum magic goes up when you initiate. You may still have to raise the attribute seperately (obviously someone with a book will know).

While I understand and sympathize with the motivation, I expect this to have the effect of making magicians even more attractive and street samurai even less attractive than they already are; i.e., to exacerbate the MagicRun problem.

Ah, that does make more sense then, thanks. I had misread that.

Here's my common sense: This rule is there to prevent impossible feats involving physical fights, particularly with guns and quick draw actions. Doubling up on the "fire semi-auto, single-shot, burst fire or full-auto" action would be ludicrous. Are two full autos possible? Can you quick draw for one shot and then follow it by six more? Can you fire a burst and then quick draw a thrown weapon after that? If I can full auto twice per action phase, and do it for five initiative passes? How many bullets would that be every three seconds? Of course these are impossible because you're already in the middle of doing these things. However, you can, of course, do other types of simple things like move, aim, gesture, speak, matrix stuff, perceive, take cover, astrally perceive and recklessly cast spells.

In the preview 4 rules: The three simple actions we know about that could qualify are "fire bow", "fire semi-auto, single-shot, burst fire or full-auto", "quick draw", "reckless spellcasting", and "throw weapon." Fire bow requires a simple action to nock the arrow, so firing it (a two-handed weapon) in the same action phase as another attack isn't an issue. Quick draw can only be done from a holster, so you can't do that twice in the same action phase without reholstering it, so that isn't an issue either either (except where I mentioned it above, combining it with other attacks). Fire (weapon) explicitly states "A character may fire a readied firearm in Semi-Auto-matic, Single-Shot, Burst-Fire, or Fully-Auto mode via a Simple Action (see Firearms, p. 424) but may not take any other attack actions in the same Action Phase." Throw weapon explicitly states "The character may not take any other attack actions in the same Action Phase." Reckless spellcasting says nothing about this, and is in fact allowed in the rules, unless the rules should be interpreted that a combat spell is somehow different in nature than casting other types of spells, particularly that it would preclude the use of a weapon or other form of simple attack purely because of what it affects and how it affects it.

The full version of the rules, or a rule clarification may well state that combat spells are special and should comply to the one "attack" per action phase clause. I hope the above shows you my point of view that to do that makes less sense than allowing no reckless spellcasting at all in combination with an attack.

Check out the other magic thread and see the people crying about how direct spells are now universally weaker than a holdout pistol. I'd argue when you have both sides that unhappy, it's actually relatively balanced.

I'm far more concerned by the ability to multicast 'non-attack' spells, because of the vagaries as to what an attack is.

Simple. First I weaken your willpower down to 1, and then I do something really bad to you.

Sounds like a pickup line

That's not "common sense". That's "I want it to work in a certain way so I'm going to read in intent that works with what I want". Can you actually point to a reason why attacking with a spell isn't attacking, or an exhaustive list of attack actions? Otherwise, an attack action is an action that leads you to roll in an attempt to land an attack.

That's not my motivation. Maybe CASTING a spell is an attack. Maybe then it should treat different spells differently. Why would that logically be the case? I'm not going to look into people's motivations. I just think that it would make more sense to disallow any reckless spellcasting during the same turn as an attack than to attach the mechanic for preventing unrealistic chains of physical moves in very short periods of time to only a certain category of spell.

What do you think of the missing text in the reckless spellcasting simple action, by the way? Perhaps it was an oversight, maybe it's written elsewhere, perhaps it isn't in the preview, or maybe it refers to spells in general working just fine, and they thought that people should have the common sense to know that combat spells are an obvious, unwritten exception.

Edit: I listed every simple action in the preview that I think could be considered an attack action by any reasonable person. There are five. Do you dispute that?

In our games we called this "Modular Magic" and eventually evolved it into "Threaded Type II".

Because if a spell is channeled through the magician to the target to cause an effect, then the outcome of the effect is not quite as controlled as it would say if a spell energy is channeled directly INTO a target.

No, what is actually happening is most shops have windows that are nothing more than extremely large viewing screens of ruthenium-based technologies. Long gone (or at least very rarely found) are the days of Window Models, Mannequins and Open Scene Displays.

No, but it does mean two spells and two sets of spell effects/outcomes and two sets of spell drain.

This is beginning to sound like the "Assault Rifle" discussion and the term "AR15".

I dispute that you have any grounds to claim that your list is an exhaustive list of attack actions. Again, what basis would you have for saying that attacking someone with a spell is not an attack? I have not seen a provided list of attack actions - the list of actions that are compatible with the Multiple Attacks Free Action certainly suggests that both Reckless Spellcasting and Cast a Spell are at least sometimes attack actions.

How about ... "if my magical action is doing something to you that you are not voluntarily allowing for?"

"Unwilling target" doesn't work so well with area spells - opposed test against specific target or threshold test to land on target as the qualifier, perhaps?

This whole discussion is kind of moot ultimately individual gms can make a determination on what is and is not permissible under the spirit or letter of the rules.

Actually, it does. Area Spells consistently deal with the idea of willing and non-willing targets.

It will be frustrating, however, if it is not better defined than in the preview.

In SR5, not so much - the "target" is a location, and you just have to generate 3 hits to hit the location.

Very true, but having a baseline to go against helps.

After all a wise sapient once wrote somewhere: If the GM doesn't understand the magic system it gets more powerful

I'm not sure how let's say I as a gm interpret the intent as one attack or negative action per turn. That opens up a wide variety of options that whould be permissible (buffs come to mind but so do defensive spells like physical barrier. There are some spells they might try and argue a technicality on but they will know presumably they are already on thin ice.

Honestly if I had my druthers it would be one spell per turn full stop and then you could reckless to take some simple action like cast on the run. But I'm going to leave things as is and see how they go.

Because all of a sudden you're having to deal with different GM's reading the rule in different ways that can make a pretty big difference to what you can actually do in a fight. For a combat/manipulation mage, for example, it can be a pretty big difference. It's like the Mystic Adept max force thing - different readings can make for some pretty big differences to some characters.

... yes? What's your point here?

I am? Pray tell do you often have more then one GM at a time at a table? I stand by my point the number of things which are permissible are fairly clear cut, things you do to yourself or your allies are presumably always permissible things that involve your enemies are a bit murkier with signs pointing to no in either case. In either case if you have a gm who can't make a call its my feeling that's as much their fault as a problem with the system and if you are really that concerned the use or loss of this "bonus spell" will make or break your character youight want something a little less kludge in your build.

Not everyone has one constant GM. My tabletop group switches that around between about four of us, plus I've got play-by-post games.

Then see my latter suggestion if you worried about how a spell will be interpreted dont rely on being able to chain cast it.

I think the most logical way of interpreting RAW in preview (until I see Book or some contradicts with the full rules) as follows...

You can Fire a Gun as a Simple or Complex Action depending on how many shots you're making and it's ROF type. You can target multiple targets by including the Multiattack Free Action. You can also fire a gun in your Off Hand as well as the one in your primary as part if the same Simple or Complex action and if desired target multiple targets with the Multiattack Free Action.

With that as a basis surely it would make as much sense that using your Spellcasting Complex Action or Reckless Casting Simple Action, if you Multicast in either Action, that you can throw multiple spells at multiple targets (with the Multiattack Free Action) or at a single target (without using the Free Action).

They key here being you can only make one attack Action in a phase/pass/on your go, whatever. That Action is either the Complex Spellcasting or Simple Reckless Casting, so it's just the magical equivalent of Burst and Full Auto Fire and/or dual weapon wielding. What it also means is you cannot use Two Simple Actions to do Two Reckless Castings attacking the same or multiple targets (you're going to have to split the dice pool on that one action for a multi attack and suck up the multi +3 Drains) but you Can use it to do two Reckless Casting Simple Actions and attack the target(s) with one of those actions and cast Armour or something on yourself with the other one.

The problem is that it wouldn't make much sense that some spell can be casted twice reckless while other spells can't. Also, where do you draw the line what is an attack? Is Orgasm an attack? Is Influence an attack? Is Levitate an attack? Is [Element] Aura an attack if you cast it onto the pistol your opponent is holding?

A game balance decision doesn't inherantly have to make sense, at least not anymore then the much derided wireless boni. For my part I think a good decision maker would be if someone makes some kind of roll to resist the spells effect it's an attack.

Considering we just had CanRay in saying that the number of attacks were reduced to cut down on dice rolls per turn in combat, what design logic would ever take this to mean it was not intended to cut down on combat spell castings as well?

Especially given that a combat spell is already twice as many rolls as a shot (attack + drain).

Edit : Also, this seems very new.

I think you misunderstand me or I'm not making myself clear. I'm essentially agreeing with you in principle. Basically if a party dodges or a resists a spell in some form or fashion actively (that is to say rolling dice) I believe it is a combat/attack spell and you should not be able to cast a second one per turn.

Basically my point is I don't care if it makes sense that you can cast some spells twice but not others in universe if on the whole it is serving a worthy game mechanical goal. Which as much as I will miss my two shots per turn I have personally seen reducing the attacks/spells improves game flow.

Actually tie divide between full mages and aspected mages is very old, its pretty much yanked right out of pre 4e editions.

The '90% of all magically active people are aspected' bit is new, though.

I don't thnk it is. I am not sue they gave an exct number but they always said 1% magically active, but most don't have a ull level of talent being adepts or aspected.

New as in Grimoire 1st edition?

Yeah, but do the math. That means 10% of 1% of the population is a full mage. Going off of Seattle 2072 :




So 3,000,000 people, +/- a couple hundred thousand.

That should indicate a population of ~3000 full mages. Of those, ~60% would be corpers. Meaning that assuming every mage that isn't a corper is a shadowrunner, there should be 1200 shadow-running full mages of the hermetic or shamanic tradition in the Seattle Sprawl.

That's hardly enough to even keep the black market for talismongering open.

Oh yes it should make sense unless it is a terrible decision. The wireless boni are a good example for that. There is only so much suspension of disbelieve that you can break before the game starts losing its flair.

So an Energy Bolt to an enemy drone wouldn't be an attack? I doubt this rule works.
Or is levitating enemy drones an attack but levitating your own drones isn't?

So you cast [Elemental Aura] on a pistol. If someone is holding the pistol in his hand and has to immediatly roll damage resitance, is it an attack or not? What if he was about to touch the pistol but you use an interrupt action to [Element Aura] the pistol first. He then proceeds then to touch it anyway because he doesn't notice, and has to roll damage resistance. Was that an attack? What if you cast [Element] Wall to a spot were a person is standing. Is that an attack? What if only a mouse or a fly is sitting there? Does that count as an attack against them? What if bacteria are there? Is it an attack them?

Don't forget, most casters will be using the Complex Action to cast (+3 Drain is NASTY no matter edition) and how many ways will most be willing to split down their Casting Dice Pools? Magic 6 + Casting 8 (which I believe is starting max in SR5) is 14dice add some foci for another few dice and you're throwing probabley 16-18 dice (+fancy reagent rules) so call it 20 (as we've seen that number before from playtest etc). To multicast 2 spells you're going 10 dice each way (depending on how they actually mean by splitting the pools) for even odds, or for three spells that's 7,7,6 . Not a lot of Hits happening there, even worse when resisted.

Now for consistency it could be easily rules that you can Reckless Cast but only perform that simple action once per phase (just like the attack action rule) to prevent the twin spelling at full pool if people are worried on it.

What is a terrible decision is in the eye of the beholder, I actually like the idea of the wireleess bonus, I just personally don't think they went far enough to compensate for the risks involved. The reason for that is plainly they were trying to cut down on the bonus dice extravaganza which was fourth edition. Which I think is a good move, on the other hand I would have stopped at just removing garbage like emotoys and restricting medkits. It's very short sited to say "this decisions is terrible" like it's a testable universal truth.

On my other point once again to GM's having the ability to determine what is and is not an attack spell. The purpose of the ability at least as it was summed up to me by folks who worked on the project is to give mages the ability to squeeze in a second spell if they really needed to without having them outpace conventional types, essentially letting them get two attacks to everyone elses one. If you have to ask whether something should be allowed under that metric your probably know it shouldn't be. Otherwise your trying to game the game. Personally I hate that shit.

Mhm, if everybody is whining the rules must be good.


And guys in general: Why is everybody assuming that "attack"-action involves spells. Jesus. Thats maybe a 50% chance, I would even but it lower, because it was not the case in the 4.01.

Sure, attack actions can be anything, the question is what is an attack action.(and well it is a magic thread) If I can cast levitate on my friend and then levitate again on my self, why is it now only castable at one target when its an enemy? If I pre set up some explosives to be triggeered by my wireless command(free action?) is that an attack action or can I shoot you in the face while blowing you up. While I get the intent to speed up play, the free action, simple action, complex action thing really worked well in all the previous editions.

It is just speculation at this point, but I believe the one attack action restriction is limited to simple actions. There is no reference to it in the Free action section that proceed it in the preview. There is also no mention of it in the complex action section, but that is understandable unless someone knows how to get two complex actions. Either way a list / chart of what constitutes "attack actions" will eliminate a great deal of this subjective, opinion based discussion at organized play events.

Well, you explicitly get one complex action per pass, and one free action per action phase, so there's no need to define what to do with two of either of those. You simply can't get two of either in one phase.

@RHat: If you can find another simple or free action that anyone might consider an attack, please feel free. My point was that the ones about actual physical fighting were clearer and often explicitly mentioned the restriction against two attacks per action phase. I'm not convinced by the term "attacking with a spell." I could be 100% wrong.

Not having two meatspace attacks per action phase makes sense to me. Rules are rules (and I haven't seen the main book, so they are ambiguous to me), but I don't see why a character should be able to fire a simple full auto and recklessly cast a spell, or a recklessly cast two spells, but not fire a simple full auto while recklessly casting certain spells, and not recklessly cast certain spells in the same action phase. I'm open to any rationale someone wants to put forth. Not being able to fire a "double simple full auto" in one action phase seems logical. They should instead use a complex full-auto weapon, complex long burst or complex semi-auto burst.

Yes but using an attack action with a simple and setting off the aforementioned grenade would be doable. A free action may be able to fire drones or activate other attacks as well. I do not know.

It should be noted that reckless spellcasting is specifically mentioned in the multi-attack free action

You should read Preview #4.

There is a Chart.

It is a quarter of a page, with a nice list of actions, and what kind of action they are.

It solves this sort of confusion, and prevents speculation that is baseless.

It is page 162, for those following along at home.





Anyone with an Origins copy care to enlighten us on page 196 and end this dumbass debate over semantics?