So the rules say you can't do anything that is considered an attack more than once per action phase. But could you recklessly cast a manabolt AND command a spirit to attack? Or is that against the spirit (pun intended) of the rule?

There shouldn't be any sort of issue with this. It would be the same as shooting your ares preditor and making a leadership test to tell your underling to shoot too. What they are trying to keep you from doing is firing twice or shooting and casting recklessly as an attack. However now that you bring that up does that mean that I could recklessly cast a buff spell then fire a weapon?

There is no way the single attack option rule is going to be argued at tables. It's obviously clear and well-thought out.

Are you rolling dice directly against an opponent? It's an attack.

Otherwise, it's not an attack.




-k

Casting ice slick for someone to fall off a catwalk into a vat of poisonous chemicals isn't an attack? Good to know.

Last time this came up, Bull said yes, you can command the spirit.

He also said the ice sheet thing is okay.


Basically the key to the action economy in SR5 is by finding ways to indirectly hurt your enemy to get around the attack rule. Anyone who thinks this rule is not 100% clear is a dirty rules lawyer and should not be allowed to play at any respectable Shadowrun table.

So, just to be clear, I can cast an ice sheet directly under a person and cause them to make some sort of immediate reaction test or some such? (And fire a gun) Or can I just put it on a piece of ground and hope they go in it? (Or in the path of a vehicle that hasn't reached it yet)

The guideline Bull posted was "if it directly impacts the enemy". So, if the enemy IMMEDIATELY has to roll to not fall, that's an attack.

What a great guideline that's not written in the book. I'm sure plenty of tables will use that guideline that's not written in the book.

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Thanks for the clarification. The catwalk example set my spidey sense tingling, as it immediately effected an enemy. Sounds like a quickdraw artist pistoleer and summoner would be a good character concept in this edition.

nm

So remember, you can cast an ice sheet as a simple action if it's 1ft in front of an enemy, but put it under them, nope! Sorry the laws of the universe just rewrote themselves to deny your attack.


Also by that exact wording, grenades are fine (the enemy doesn't roll until later), but I'm pretty sure Bull explicitly said that was metagame cheesiness and shouldn't fly.


So basically, there is no rule. Just BS your DM into believing whatever you are doing is not an attack, and you get to win the game.

Nah, you just won the combat. What you have really done, is given your GM permission to use the same tactics on you. Dum-Dum-Duuuuuuuum! Lol.

Except the DM believes it's not an attack. Why would he want to waste his time doing that?

Because that's hundreds and thousands of extra attacks on your character over their career's length. He could get kicked out of the GM guild for not taking them and balancing the karma of PC suffering in the Universe.

I know the rule doesn't make sense from a logical point of view. But it may make for a better game. It's a bit like the new movement rules. Logic tells me it's absurd for me to take my entire movement in the first second of a 3 second round. But if we go back to older movement systems, we'll be dividing up our movement across IPs. It's a pain in the ass. So I'm sure the new movement will be much better, and this might be too. It's not like the beer addiction rules, those are just out right crazy.