Ok, here's the situation:
Face A uses leadership on Spellcaster B, giving him +4 dice and +4 limit to his next check through teamwork.
Spellcaster B casts a force 3 spell.

So, is the spell's limit 3 (force) or 7 (3 force + 4 teamwork)?

For teamwork spellcasting you need to use Ritual Spellcasting afaik.

And, generally:
Teamwork adds dice, not limit or does it add to limit too?

It adds limit (page 49).

Leadership used to Direct (page 142) acts as a teamwork test for one subordinate's skill or composure check. Very useful if you don't mind 'Cheerleading'.

EDIT: can't see where it says no teamwork on spellcasting. may be looking in the wrong section. could I get a page number?

The leadership only adds one to limit but 4 dice in your example.

I thought "Instant teamwork" still had some kind of limit to what you could teamwork but there is no such thing written in the book. That means three musketeers should all line up their guns and then roll Agility+Longarms and add to one guys epic shot and that shot flies straight as a laser despite being an ancient gun with nonexistent accuracy...


For regular teamwork I only allow it for tasks that can reasonably be done together (Like First Aid, Negotiation, Navigation, Survival, etc.) but not to things that are done purely on your own. If your Troll friends stands next to you and flexes his muscles you don't get amazingly good at climbing.

I could however see a good leader giving a pep talk help you climb better.

Ritual spellcasting gives a few hints on how it works with participants that don't "Match", it gives -2 penalty if you don't share tradition so for spellcasting I'd go for at least that penalty unless the leadership guy shares tradition with the caster.

Also, remember that if you at any time get more HITS than MAGIC you get physical drain! (And leadership only works on SKILL and Composure tests, so you can't cheerlead someone to lift a heavy object (no skill, Body+Strength) or to aid any kind of resists.

But, even reading through the book regarding Leadership, Spellcasting and Teamwork tests I can't find any explicit limits to allow a team of cheerleaders to make the mage sustain a F1 Increased reflexes with limit 20+ and some 30-40 dice casting pool to get ludicrous initiative (For example). Slap some edge on that and you get truely stupid combos.

In SR4 it was more clear that Spellcasting was "solo" and Ritual Spellcasting was teamwork and that you can't teamwork most "instant" type of actions like shooting or regular spellcasting.

So... having a mage with a personal cheer squad when he casts his buff spells every morning might be workable then? A bunch of low-force sustaining foci boosting high-power spells...

Ditto with an alchemist. One would think that having a calm environment would be superior for crafting preparations, but it turns out that having a bunch of cheerleaders waving pom-poms in the background is the best way to eke every ounce of power out of your skills. who'd have thought it?

wow...this just means a sniper has a reason to have a spotter now in the game.

Except the army of "spotters" are all wearing rifles but instead of shooting they just ehm fake shots at the target and give insane accuracy and dice pools to the sniper. Makes sense...

To be fair though, the Leadership version only works on actions performed next action phase, I wouldn't allow a lengthy task like alchemy count as being done before the end of next action phase. (Though real teamwork with two mages makes perfect sense! You get awesome pools with teamwork!)

Leadership isn't cheerleading. The character being helped has to accept publicly acknowledge the leader as their (lone) superior. That is what makes mystic adepts such good leaders.

But joking aside, I don't understand how the Command option works. I'm guessing it's for NPCs. Otherwise, is it for people who like the idea of being the team leader? Note that it says it won't work if you've failed on that target before. Does that mean ever, as in, ever in your life?

The (sole) superior clause: does that mean you can't have a teamwork Leadership Test? It doesn't, however, preclude a chain of command where one leader adds dice to another Leadership Test, does it?

The Melee Teamwork section and example on page 188 talks about chaining teamwork tests in melee, but that's not the same as using the Direct option of Leadership.

Also, Ritual Spellcasting is different from Spellcasting, so I'm not sure that applying the same mechanics to the two (referring to the -2 different tradition modifier to each participant).

Regarding the original question, I don't see where Leadership affects limits.

Simple, really. Teamwork is not the same as Leadership.

I really don't get why Direct action from Using Leadership was put into the rules, at least in the way it's formulated. From both the standpoints of realism and game mechanics/balance.

Realistically, there's a limit to how much better you can get at what you do. Say I am not particularly dexterous and have never fired a gun in my life. I recognize some other weak dude who hasn't held a gun either, as my leader, because I trust him, and he gives me some kind of verbal encouragement and tells me how to shoot it (or does he? he doesn't know how to shoot better than me to begin with). All right, whatever, I'm more motivated to give it all I got, I really need to make this shot. But the thing is that this guy is damn good at inspiring and directing others, damn good. So good that it makes me suddenly pretty decent at this thing I've never done before in my life. Wait.. does it?

Now with game mechanics. I have an agility of 2 and no pistol skill, but I can default with 1 die. I can only hope that I'll get a success, with a lot of luck I might hit and do damage. But thankfully I have a really charismatic elf friend who's gotten really good at being in a leadership role and directing others. Let's give him 8 charisma, 6 leadership and a specialization in directing others, because he's just this great. He rolls 16 dice and gets 6 successes. I can now roll 7 dice instead and a normal odds of hitting - heck I shoot as good as a beat cop. That's pretty unbalanced. That leadership beast (actually I only spent very limited investments in my example: elf race, a hard cap on an attribute, and 7 skill points; the pool could go up to 25+ dice with some effort) can at one complex action's notice provide proficiency in anything you can default to, to anyone in his team that recognizes him as the leader. He can also greatly enhance someone who's already good at it, which can be a bit game-breaking in its own right from a game balance perspective (my very good 18 dice DP just got up to 26!?!?).

What I find most annoying with that is that I could understand getting up to 50% more or maybe 100% more dice from a leader boosting my confidence or whatever, but I can't imagine getting 600% more like in my example. It says that using leadership is about "coaxing, convincing, threatening, or challenging your subordinates," but there's only so much you can do when you tell someone to do something better but can't necessarily do it at all yourself to begin with.

Personally, I think that it should cap, just like Teamwork Tests did in SR4A. No more additional Dice than Skill rank.

I think this is meant to be used for enemies of the team to allow a boss that makes the mooks tougher.

And for the elf example: Exceptional Attribute (Charisma) quality, Increase (Charisma) spell quickened, Improved Ability (Leadership) adept power, Improved Potential (Social) adept power, Indomitable quality, use Edge.

Can anybody think of skill tests where this kind of assistance should be prohibited? Are Extended Tests out? Must it only be during times when Combat Actions are being kept track of?

I can imagine Negotiation tests where the leader helps the Face with lots of extra dice.

I agree. That would at least be a start. But don't forget that skills go up to 12-13 now, so you could still get a pretty ridiculous boost from someone who doesn't know the first thing about what you're doing.

Those who can, DO.

Those who can't, LEAD

Why must they be wearing (bearing) rifles and faking shots? Teamwork is simply a skill check, the limits are imposed by the the statistics of the "leader".
If I have Longarms skill and a pair of binoculars, what is to prevent me from making a teamwork test, to "spot" for another player.

Can a leader help someone create a better magical focus? That's the only test I've found in the game where you can't spend Edge.

Afraid not. It specifies 'next complex action', and crafting foci takes a little longer than that.

OTOH, two people with enchanting skills helping each other to craft powerful foci makes sense.

I don't see where it specifies that.

I just noticed that you can default on Leadership. So in a pinch, I'll be saying "Yes boss!" to charismatic people willing to help me out on something.

Actually Shem is correct it does not state that it only helps on a complex action, just that it helps on a skill or composure test on or before their next Action Phase.

You know, my bosses boss is kind of like this... (Or he thinks he is)

Direct (p.142) states that is acts like Teamwork check. And then on p.49 ... The most dice that can be added to the test is equal to the leader's rating in the applicable skill, or the highest attribute rating if the test incolces two attributes.

Meaning, in your example you would get an increase of 1 (one team worker) to limit, but no extra dice. Doing the same trick on a specialist sniper, on the other hand, can do some impressive things.

Spellcasting is explicitly taken out from Teamwork, but it works on everything else, including Hacking, Rigging and most famously shooting.

I think for the sake of sanity, that unless the person with leadership is also a magician of similar enough tradition, that "coaching a buddy through a casting" just isn't going to be possible under standard game mechanics.

Nothing to do with sanity. All magic activities (as far as I can see) have special rules for team working, which do not include Leadership (the author of that section was probably not aware of the Leadership rules). Spellcasting has Ritual Spellcasting, Summoning has special rules, Enchanting has some language regarding Team Work. Hmmm, can't find anything on Alchemy, ... an oversight? I would infer (for sanity's sake) that you may be able to use Leadership instead of Teamworking, if you were qualified to teamwork in the first place.

So, a Mage might take direction from a Shaman, IF he is willing to take direction from a shaman.

It doesn't state that "it acts like Teamwork check" as you claim. It rather says on p. 142 "Your hits act as a Teamwork Test" -- I don't know if that distinction is important or not.

Anyway, let's assume you are right and the guy being led (the "leader" in a teamwork test.. so confusing) receives dice equals to the hits on the leadership roll. So at least a skill-0 dude couldn't be helped. Someone with the skill can still be helped a lot by someone who doesn't know anything about the action to be performed but who is a good leader. This is strange to me and I continue to dislike the Direct action as part of the leadership actions.

While I admit that ritual spellcasting is, indeed, a thing, I don't see these other special rules or language prohibiting a leadership bonus. Moreover, I don't see how the existence of ritual spellcasting makes a leadership bonus against the rules.

There is absolutely nothing indicating that the Leadership Test is not applicable to Spellcasting. Especially since spellcasting is a complex action, and complex actions are boostable by the Leadership Test.