eh, no. sorcerers are, in fact, much less powerful than either wizards or clerics in 3.x because they can do a lot fewer things (and also because everyone can pretty much do their thing enough times anyways... you only need to kill everything instantly once. doing it twice is generally not needed).

if you gave a 3.x fighter fast healing 20 at which point they'd basically be able to fight indefinitely, and they'd *still* be weaker than any spellcaster you care to name (including the lousy spellcasters like bards), and the sorcerer would still be less impressive than the wizard even if the sorcerer could cast infinite spells per day, simply because the wizard can use a much larger variety of spells to get the right spell for the right situation (and therefore does not need nearly as many spells per day in the first place).

the thing that breaks 3.x spellcasters (and indeed, the spellcasters in most games) is the sheer variety of things they can do, combined with the fact that some lunatic in the balance department thinks they should *also* be equal or superior for damage-dealing as a dedicated purely focused damage-dealing character. the more different things they can do, the more broken they get, unless they pay for it in some meaningful way (ie some way that cannot be trivially dealt with).

think about it this way:

suppose we introduced an archetype to shadowrun that could shoot energy out of their hands, dealing the same damage as a gun, and could do so infinitely. now, this would be undesirable, but not because of balance. functionally, the difference between a person carrying a gun and a bunch of ammo and our theoretical energy blaster archetype is negligible. the only reason it shouldn't be added is that it doesn't fit the setting. apart from that, that archetype wouldn't cause any meaningful problems.

in contrast, if we introduced an archetype that could, say, walk through walls at will, or teleport even a short distance, or use mind control at will, it would be *far* more disruptive. but damage? that's trivial. everything in the setting can deal lots of damage. sources of damage are cheap and plentiful, adding more won't break anything unless you add a truly stupid amount of it (ie if you add an archetype that can level small buildings in a complex action, you've got a problem. if you've got an archetype that deals damage like small arms fire, it's not going to cause any problems no matter how many times per day you can do it).

Small aside: The wizard is better if and only if he can plan accordingly. If he has the wrong spells prepared for some reason, he's much worse. The sorcerer's flexibility has a lot of advantages to it. Which one is actually better depends a lot on the dynamics of the game.

That's why we got the tier system, which mostly measures versatility, but general power level as a soconday axis.

In terms of shadow run, mages have come down a tier, because one of their options has been nerfed to hell, but that still leaves them as pretty much the alpha tier

Starmage:
Not just one of their options has been nerfed to hell. All of them have.


Combat spells... lets just call them non-combat spells for the irony.

Detection spells... resisted with two attributes now. passive detection net successes limit.

Health Spells... probably the least affected. Increase reflexes is nowhere near as powerful as it used to be though (as are all the initiative enhancers).

Illusions... again resisted with two attributes instead of one. You roll an improved invis with only 3 successes... prepare for a lot of people to see through your naked emperor act just by sheer luck. (3 successes on 6 dice of 2 avg attributes isn't that uncommon). Also object resistance is now rolled... getting 6 successes on an improved invis is no longer absolute protection against security cameras and drones visual sensors. With 15 dice, sometimes it will make the resistance roll.


Manipulations: Again resisted with two attributes. Many of them were outright nerfed... influence now is only short duration instead of a powerful hypnotic suggestion. Levitate... unusable in combat at the pathetic speeds.

Spirits: weaker now comparatively... ItNW doesn't mean as much when weapons hit a lot harder. Similarly players regain a skill advantage in a way with having 12 ranks of skill available.

Drain can't be first aided... almost all drain is stun again now (barring supremely good rolls cast at high force)

Astral... deadlier than ever.. with raw Cha base damage. compared to a direct spells damage. And lets face it astral armor is not very common.


So I don't quite buy that they're still the top tier... yes they're flexible... but they're far more like a bard now than a wizard.

and as i said, a bard still pretty much blows the fighter out of the water in terms of power. a bard has to go about it a little bit differently, but still superior just due to general versatility (although not as good directly in combat, so at least the fighter has *something* better than the bard).

with that said, most of those nerfs are relative... the simple fact is that magic + spellcasting is likely to be higher than the vast majority of target's resistance rolls. if you can mix in a power focus (which most magicians will want to do, but wanting and getting are not the same thing), then you'll be even further ahead of the game (or alternately, if it's an area of specialty you can throw in another two dice in).

the simple fact is that most of the time you're throwing an attribute you've set as high as possible plus a skill you've set as high as possible vs two attributes, and most of the time those attributes are not core to an archetype's concept. yes, it's easier for people to resist now, but the odds are still pretty firmly in your favour most of the time.

also, i'm curious how levitate is somehow completely and utterly impossible to use in combat because it's sooooo slow. movement rates for an average person is 6 meters walking (and i don't think it's terribly plausible to presume a high agility for a magician character when everyone's complaining over how hard it is to fit in agility + <gun skill> into a magician build). movement rate of a force 6 levitate is 6 meters. going faster than that means losing your free action (which you were probably holding onto for spell defence, unless you prefer to use up your initiative score instead) and taking a -2 penalty to all actions.

in other words, levitate is sooo unusable that *gasp* it doesn't make you faster (unless you *really* dump-statted agility). unless you get a spirit to use movement on you, in which case it's quite a bit faster.

So... Not having a perfect defense against all detection, able to take control of anyone you can see on a whim, only being able to fly over obstacles at low speed, and only being able to summon a demigod of battle... is bad?

Also: Mages make armour a joke. Even indirect spells go through it like a knife through butter. They get elemental effects that are impossible to replicate with conventional weapons in any practical sense (Cold and acid spring to mind), and all without having to worry about the omnipresent MAD scanners and cyberware.

Cry me a river.

If non-combat spells are needed because resistance is now based on two attributes, doesn't that make just about every non-combat skill weaker? I mean, all Social Tests are resisted via two attributes as well.

I'd like to have more sympathy for the Magician's Plight, but it's pretty hard to see a plight when you strip away the hyperbole and generally insulting tone.

Mages got nerfed, yes and they needed it. The nature of that nerf is that you have to be prepared a bit more and that you have an actual development- / learrningcurve. Mages are very powerful from the start (if you set them up right) and they quickly grow in power (if we assume a regular Karma-Income).

I keep reading that direct combat spells (dcs) are weak and still I fear both, direct and indirect combat spells. Even if my non-mage combat character would have a willpower of 6 (more likely to be 3 or 4) I would still be likely to face 10 - 20 dice on the attackers side (and that's not tops). That would be about all I can do... roll a fraction of the attackers dice, to defend myself, no dodge, no armor, just one single throw on willpower. DCS, get quite a boost, once you are a bit into the game.

So while dcs may not be the "one spell to fry them all" solution, they can be rather good, should you know how to apply them.

I really love to play mages, because of their utility and their versatility ( I could still specialize if I wanted a god of war though). You should not be so offended by the fact, you need to think a bit more about how to apply your characters abilities. Even if mages would not be able to summon spirits and would only have one category of spell available, they could setup, to grab a gun and still be cooler and more versatile than your average samurai.

While I am not very fond of SR5, I would prefer to play a mage in SR5 more, than I would in SR4 - I like, having to know, how to best apply my skills.

I wonder how many of these complaints are uttered by GMs. Because I have had more than one encounter completely detailed by the Uber-Stunball.

I think we can - once again - agree that we cannot agree. What is for true: mages SHOULD be powerful. In SR5 they are not as powerful anymore, as they were in SR4. That is a fact. Did they need a nerf? I think so. Direct combat spells were too good, indirect ones close to uselessness. Is it approbriate to feel overnerfed? I would say so, but not everybody needs to be my opinion.

If some of you think that it still makes fun to play a mage...go for it. But do i like to play a mage in SR5? Dunno. I don´t know if i like to max. body because i need to survive longer, before i can finish an enemy. Do i like to play even more defensive than in SR4? IMHO i already was defensive enough. Some times up to a point it got boring.

I will have a playtest as soon as the german sourcebook will be released. Not before. Then i give you a in-game-comment about the result. But the math is clear and even if you can compensate the changes by another kind of gaming-style, it will be very different. You cannot argue that point away.

REgular target: 5 reaction 3 intiuation and willpower, 4 body helmet and standard armor for 16 soak dice and 8 defence dice.

An average Sam shoots with 16 dice vs 8 hits about 90% of the time with accuracy 6 gun (high!), gun dealing 8 + around 2 net hits per hit (just over 10 P, but around 5 of those is soaked, or an expected damage per combat phase of 4.5

A standard mage hitting the same target with a manabolt F6 deals 4.14 damage per round. Slight advantage to the Sam. If mage uses reagents to get limit above 6 (it is cheap after all) the average damage is 4.60

This is a standard-ish target with pretty crappy defence and unspecial armour and body and they are equal.

A target with more defence will laugh at the Sam, even if the Sam brings a big huge obviously illegal gun that do more damage.

An armored target has some 20+ soak dice and it is not that hard to get at least 12-14 defence.

I don't see how people find Direct combat spells underpowered. They perform on par with a pistol and they are concealable as one and can be aoe without much effort and they are superior versus defence/armored targets giving them a clear niche.

This is balance, people. Spellcasting can also heal, fly and buff while automatics still just can shoot people. That 0.5 damage advantage guns has versus squishy slow targets is not a problem, it is a feature.

Even a really weak mage with Magic + spellcasting sum of 6 (4 magic, 2 spellcasting) will deal 2.03 average damage vs will 3. I can't say Agility 4 + pistols 2 can do that versus the same target... that sam has 25% chance to hit, for around 4 damage or half the damage per round...

And you cant spend dirt cheap reagents to ignore gun accuracy!

I really fail to see how direct spells are bad, they are still awesome. Just not terribly overpowered to trivialize the game but still keep up nicely and mix well with directs and other spells.

And this is why I don't play Wizards. Clerics are almost as bad, but there's a pretty general spellset you can take and have what you need most of the time. Along with the "convert any spell to healing" ability. If wizards had the "convert any spell to [spell level]d6 of damage" they'd be so much more versatile. They could prepare the buff/debuff spells, then when needing damage, just burn something.

Funny how different our perception of reality can be. I read your comment and overthought it a second, but the only thing that came to my mind was:

Average sam shoots with a gun that makes 8P damage. So we are talking about a common heavy pistol? Ok, but what about special ammunition? What about burst-fire? What about heavier guns? And how often can the Sam shoot?

Standard mage shoots manabolt F6. correct. ONE TIME per complex action. Do you see a slight difference? I see one, sorry.

Situation: team is under fire and your char turn around a corner. Sam meets the enemy and shoots until the enemy is dead or is not able to fight anymore. Same situation with mage: Mage shoots once (lets assume overcasting), either it knocks the target down or it does zero damage (SR4-rules). In SR5? He does average damage with an indirect spell but the target still can shoot back. Direct spell? Minor damage and still an enemy which shoots back.

And if we talk about the spells:

- mage can become invisible? Sams can get chameleon suits or they have ultrasound or radar sensor to f**ck the all so great invisible mage.
- mage can levitate? Sam has high strengh and can climb OR he uses the grappel gun
- mage can heal? Medkit can heal too, doesn´t it?

So what?

I'm strongly on the side of the debate that believes direct combat spells have a clear niche and that they remain useful, especially against high body/high defense pool/armored targets. DCS can also be area based by the way, and this can increases total damage done per spell substantially.

But about using reagents to make them more powerful, I disagree that it is dirt cheap, as someone put it. It's still a significant expenditure for a one-time use. Say you want to spend 8 reagents for every manabolt you throw, that's still 160 nuyens per use. Very useful, but if you plan to throw say 6 of those per run, it's still a cost of almost 1000 nuyen just for your direct combat spells (might want to spent reagents on other spells/summons too). Compare that to bullets, or even grenades (which have much higher lethality) and it's at the very least on par, but probably more expensive. So not cheap.

In 5e, everyone shoots a gun once per IP. Mages can cast one attack spell per IP. No difference in the amount of times they can attack.


You turn the corner and "meet the enemy". Where is this? Did you have to sneak in somewhere? Are you able to carry your big automatic weapon? If not, and you are carrying a pistol, then against against high dodge/high armor enemies, the Samurai, will have a very difficult time hitting/damaging them. Against these targets, indirect spells also have the same difficulty, but direct combat spells work just fine. I will agree that in most cases, the direct combat spell isn't dropping the high dodge/high armor guy in one hit, but then again neither is your heavy pistol (and again, against people who are wearing good armor/have high dodge, the pistol isn't doing much damage at all.)

Against poor dodge/poor armor opponents, then indirect spells are the way to go, and scale similar to firearms.


"- mage can become invisible? Sams can get chameleon suits or they have ultrasound or radar sensor to f**ck the all so great invisible mage."

A chameleon suit adds 2 to the limit of your sneak test. It only gives you extra dice if you have the wireless on. Let's assume you do. So now, the samurai will roll 2 more dice than the mage to see if he can be detected.

On the other hand, if a mage casts improved invisibility, and gets 5 hits (not hard at all to do) even with a starting character, that means that in order to see the mage, the opponent has to roll at least 5 successes on their Intuition + Logic. And then even if they do, they still need to beat the mage's stealth check. Not to mention, btw, the mage can wear a chameleon suit too. Your ultrasound does very little, because it resists the Invisibility spell using its Object Resistance rating, which is 9 dice. Not a very large chance of that actually rolling 5 hits on those 9 dice. And then again, even if you DO manage to roll 5 hits on your 9 dice, you have to beat his stealth check with your perception check.

- mage can levitate? Sam has high strengh and can climb OR he uses the grapple gun

What does a high strength do when you have to jump off a building? The grapple gun also doesn't really work if you need to go down in a hurry, especially if the fall is longer than the rope you are carrying. Climbing up a surface also requires skill checks. Once I've cast Levitate, which, btw only requires 1 hit to support 200 kgs, I can move around indefinitely with no penalty. Might I add, I don't need to carry climbing gear, or a grapple gun - which, btw, do you always have on you? Cause the mage always has that spell available.

- mage can heal? Medkit can heal too, doesn´t it?
Yes. A Medkit does heal. But a Mage casting Heal rolls Sorcery + Magic (which let's face it, is going to be at least 12 dice) with each hit healing a box. The non-mage has to use his First Aid + Logic - and while there are certainly some characters with a high First Aid, not many are going to be rolling 12 dice. Not only that, but while Mages have to subtract dice for characters with lower than 6 essence, the person using the medkit has to subtract two successes for all targets, regardless of essence, since only hits above the threshold of 2 actually heal anything. Magic is also not limited to being applied within one hour of the damage.

Did I mention that in all of this above, the mage has to have spent 6 skill points in sorcery, and 3 of his 10 free spells. As far as attributes are concerned, he needs Agility for stealth, + 2 stats for resisting drain and that's it.

The samurai, on the other hand, needs to have: Climbing skill (or exotic ranged weapon, grappel gun), First Aid, a firearms skill of some type, and Stealth. He also needs Agility for stealth and shooting, strength for climbing, logic for first aid. And all of the equipment that goes with it (grappel gun, chameleon suit, med kit, firearm, bullets).

I think the analysis should also include the average amount of drain incurred by the mage to cast at the forces used to calculate damage. So the mage does about the same damage in that equation while simultaneously doing X damage to himself. We increase the drain value by 3 to be able to do the same damage in the same action as the gun required. So we should have a calculation for that too.

I think you need to fully understand the differences in SR5 - because it seems you think the need to play more defensively is an SR5 mage change, when it is in fact an SR5 global change.



The special ammo gives him armour piercing that remains lesser than what a Mage is liable to get (AP=Force, after all). Burst fire does not increase his damage, as in SR5 the only effect of burst fire is to reduce defense dice. Heavier guns compare against higher force spells - sure, the Mage risks more damage with them, but he also doesn't have to worry about concealing them. And like everyone else, the Sam can take only one attack action per action phase.

As to the bit about gear, healing requires a Medkit AND Logic AND First Aid. Climbing or using a grapple gun requires the right skills, though hopefully the Sam has the right attributes already. The chameleon suit only offers a bonus to the roll if you run wireless.

I'm curious, though, why you're so insistent that direct combat spells MUST be the central thing the mage leans on - what's wrong with indirects being the bread-and-butter?

What do you mean by "we increase the drain value by 3 to be able to do the same damage in the same action as the gun required. So we should have a calculation for that too."

You can only fire a gun once per IP. You can only cast one attack spell per IP.

If I roll an initiative of 15, then on 15 I can shoot my SA pistol ONCE. I can fire one bullet at the target as a simple action. I can fire 3 bullets at the target as a complex action. I cannot take two simple actions to fire two bullets at the target. If I were a mage, I could cast ONE combat spell as a complex action. Even if I were to recklessly spellcast, I can't cast two manabolts as two simple actions. I could, however, manabolt as one simple action and heal someone as another.

As far as how much drain the mage is taking, it depends. For direct combat spells, you should be taking almost no drain at all. Given that the force is the limit on hits, unless you have a MASSIVE dice pool, you will not need to cast it higher than force 5 - which means you are resisting 2DV with your 10 or 11 dice. You should not take drain much at all.

For indirect combat spells, you may take drain more often, depending on how much damage you want to do. Lightning Bolt, for instance, is F-3 drain. So if you are casting it at say Force 6, you have a weapon that is 6DV with 6 AP - better AP than all guns, and equal to most even using APDS ammo (large caliber weapons aside). You are resisting 3DV with your 10 or 11 dice. Will you take drain? Sometimes. Compare that to a heavy pistol with APDS ammo - which is 7 or 8DV with an AP of 5. The mage has the benefit of Line of Sight range as well as doing elemental damage. Also bear in mind that as a mage gets more powerful, by taking the Centering Meta-magic, he starts adding dice to his drain resistance pool, which let him either start casting Force 6 spells with little to no drain, or pushing it up in force to do more damage with the same amount of drain he used to take casting it a force 6.

Once per initiative pass may any character make an attack. If the Sam does it every initiative pass his recoil penalties start stacking up.

What are the recoil penalties on spells again?

You have no idea what you're talking about here.

Ultrasound does NOT roll object resistance against an improved invisibility spell.

It sees right through it provided the invisible target is close enough to the bearer of the system (read the description and the 50' range on the ultrasound IIRC). The spell only blocks light based visual senses. Just as in prior editions it has no effect on processed visual overlays.

People keep saying heavy pistol... but a force 6 indirect is more like a light pistol. 8 damage with 5AP is nowhere close to 6 damage with 6 AP. Every point of damage is generally worth 3AP. If talking the big revolver even worse 9D, 6AP apds SS with no recoil penalties. (SS weapons don't accrue recoil).



Similarly, ignored is that anyone taking cover... gets a bonus to the resistance checks against any spell targetted at them (not only combat spells). So many of your assumptions fly out the window. Your face trying to negotiate across the room doesn't get slammed with a cover penalty.


Also in the official campaign you keep going on and on about 12 dice... in my experience it's more like 10 dice. Because there's pretty much an omnipresent 2 point BGC penalty. Again something someone using skills like negotiation doesn't get slammed with.


Don't get me wrong. I'm glad they toned down the mage in SR5. It was a bit stupidly overpowered in SR4 (and it was worse in SR3, and even worse in SR2... etc.) It's part of a long tradition of nerfing. The problem is that they finally went overboard and overnerfed some aspects to the point of near unusability.

Direct combat spells now fill a very narrow niche in game. But don't expect them to be reliable or big damage sources... you're more likely to knock out your mage with drain than severely hurt the opposition. The few niche rolls I can still see for them are... attacking astral targets & breaking through wards when astral combat isn't an option either because it wasn't trained, or the target is simply flying out of reach. Mage sight systems of mirrors and fiber optics as well. Though those impose a -3 dice penalty on the spellcasting reducing the damage even more. It also raises the question of why you just aren't mindraping the sucker and having him put a gun to his own head or in his buddies back.

Back when ideas were being tossed around for SR5... you may recall I advocated that the 'spellcasting' skill be broken up into 5 skills for the 5 different types of magic with a single 'skill group' covering them all. Making counterspell and ritual magic non-group skills. Instead they made skill groups worse across the board by making them all 3 skills instead of 4 or 5... which made them worthwhile if costly. And left spellcasting + magic alone...

There is a debate on recoil: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=39831

Due to crappy grammar, the sentence on recoil can be read three different ways. Two of these interpretations (one of which is explicitly used as an example in the book), allows a Sam, if he plans correctly, to effectively shoot every turn, without ever worrying about recoil. It's only the most strict interpretation (and implied within a second example in the book, right after the first example) that would force a Sam to take stacking recoil penalties.

@falconer: well gosh, i didn't know that faces and street samurai were immune to ever taking penalties to their primary skills! out of curiosity, when did the social modifiers table stop applying, or all those modifiers to attack rolls like the target being in cover or running? because i could've *swore* they still existed yesterday. but hey, now that only magicians ever take penalties to their rolls, and nobody else, yeah, i guess that *would* seem like a weakness.

or, you know, it would be, except that as far as i can tell, everyone else has to face penalties too, from time to time.

tjn:
That's why I often state the weak suit of the current crop of SR writers is writing.

They have trouble communicating in clear terse concise language their intent. In many cases it feels like... why use 10 words with I can use 30. Even then they don't seem to think about 'how is this broken'... what's the loophole. As well as a large swath of... was this even playtested or just thrown together (addiction rules anyone).

They're reasonably good at fiction and storytelling... but I don't care one wit about that in a rulebook. I really don't even read the fiction in it generally unless I'm supremely bored (such as waiting for the decker to still get his special time with the GM out of the way).

Given time they may improve. But the game lost a lot of it's best talent when it went through the financial difficulties. And even now I sincerely doubt we'll see product support such as an official errata for a while to come.


Jaid:
My point is that there's a lot of penalties to magic that many people don't realize because they don't watch the setting.

Things like say quickly erecting a mana barrier adding +force dice to resistance rolls and the like.

If they have solid cover... +4 dice again right there. Now we're up to +9 dice on top of two attributes... plus counterspelling as needed for spice.

So far in official products/events my experience has been that there has always been a BGC as well.

I'm curious about your math. 12 dice vs 3 dice should give an expected 3 damage (4 - 1). 6 dice vs 3 dice should give an expected 1 damage (2 - 1). How does using reagents change that, as they do not add dice?

it changes the average value by allowing the rolls that generate more than (force) hits to be used.

for example, if you use a force 3 manabolt and have 9 dice and you roll 10 times, you might the following number of hits: 2, 1, 4, 3, 3, 2, 4, 6, 3, 5.

with a force 3 spell, you are capped at 3. with reagents, you can use all of those hits, therefore the average goes up because you're actually able to use the full value of those higher rolls.

The probability math there is a little bit more robust than "Dice pool/3", as it's actual averages rather than just a quick and dirty expected value. Limits will alter that more robust calculation, as it's accounting for the range of results.

Guys. Honestly i don´t know what we are discussing about. Up to now obviously nobody has a proper clue about the correct rules. So we only throw around sciolism which leads us to nowhere. The topic was quite simple “are direct combat spells in SR5 useless”? The answer to me is yes, because something that earlier made 12 damage, now makes 4 damage (assumption was overcast spell force 8, with 4 NET-successes). Now we have to talk about the word “useless”. MY (and only my) expectation on a combat spell is, to one-shot or at least one-shot-incapacitate a target. This is not possible anymore. If you can accept the damage decrease from 12 to 4 then FOR YOU it is NOT useless. It ain´t getting more simple than that.

I think you meant that a combat spell is able to one-shot a target with average human stats without running more than minimal risk (perhaps 10% of less) of suffering Drain damage. Details, friend, details. A combat spell that cannot one shot anything more durable than a weak target is still useless.

so it's worthless if it doesn't instantly kill everything? guess everyone better start throwing their pistols and SMGs away. useless trash, really. why bother ever packing anything less than an ares alpha, right? heck, why even bother investing in automatics at all, if you invest in heavy weapons you have everything you'll ever need, right? assault cannons, grenade launchers, missile launchers, it's all there. have to settle for 10P -3 on your MMG until you can break the availability cap for your assault cannon sidearm though.

Correct. But we shouldn´t put in more details than absolutely needed, because otherwise the point seems to gets lost. ^^

Everyone who is not a magician or mystic adept or otherwise able to cast spells.

I think the point is that it is worthless not because it doesn't instantly kill everything, but it is worthless when compared with its previous incarnation.

I also think that something that causes 4P damage is not worthy to be called "combat-spell". ^^

It's pretty bad compared to most other options available to the mage in SR5. He'd frequently get better mileage out of spray and pray from a SMG, especially after casting/using preparation a improved attribute agility spell/

Are direct damage a bit too narrow of a niche for its power. I think so, but its closer than where 4e was. I honestly don;t see a fix, force+net hits is broken maybe if they made the drain force+2? for stun bolt it might work, but even then I think it would be screwed. Net hitsx2 still broken IMO.

Not useless. Hold-out guns have their place as well. Their use is specialized.

SR5 has tried to move away from oneshotting because it is super boring.

No more +9 DV (or +11 DV) silly automatic fire

No more silly Direct spells dealing guaranteed damage.


(But for some reason, silly grenades dealing damage, but with proper rules they should only deal this damage to targets that are unwilling to move. They are meant to be area denial and works wonders as that)


The outgoing average damage for an F6 (limit 6) direct combat spell is not Dicepool/3 after Dicepool 6 since you no longer count hits beyond 6. Rolling 7 hits on 7 dice is rare so the effect is small but it soon have good effect.

The average damage is the Sum of Hits=1 to infinity Max(6,Hits)*P(Hits) where P(n) Is the chance to roll EXACTLY n hits.

P(n) is hits over dicepool * misschance ^ (dicepool-n) * hitchance ^(n) hitchance is 1/3 (5 and 6), misschance 2/3 (1 to 4).

Typically written as combination(pool, n)*(2/3)^(pool-n)*(1/3)^n



The chance to hit with 6 dice versus 8 defender is not 0. Even when you only count net hits. It is a very common error to do on these forums to just take expected hits - expected resists and call that average damage.

Average damage on a F6 (limited) Manabolt is something like this:

1* (P(attacker rolls 1 hit)*P(Defender rolls no hits)+P(Attacker rolls 2 hits)*P(Defender rolls 1)+P(Attacker rolls 3 hits)*P(Defender rolls 2) + 2 * (all combinations that gives 2 net hits + 3 * combinations that give 3, up to the last term that is the chance that they attacker rolls 6 (or more) hits * 6 damage

That ends up looking a little like
Pool Will3
1 0,23
2 0,53
3 0,90
4 1,29
5 1,68
6 2,03
7 2,34
8 2,62
9 2,87
10 3,10
11 3,30
12 3,50
13 3,68
14 3,84
15 4,00
16 4,14
17 4,27
18 4,38
19 4,48
20 4,57


This is even more important for soaking, many think 10 dice drain resist gives no drain for a 2 DV spell while it is 0.12 average drain (1 drain in every 8 casts). That is why you don't get to buy hits on drain resist tests.

Let me put it this way. In SR4.5, how many combats were "Fight until the mage casts stunball?" Substitute manaball, manabolt, or combat spell of your choice.

In my experience? All of them. Oh, except for the times when we didn't have a mage. Other than that, every combat in Sr4/4.5 effectively ended with a direct combat spell.

Grenades
Shotguns
Assault Rifle, Full Auto, APDS

No one/twoshots? Really?

As others have pointed out: the issue in SR4 was not the direct combat spell. It was the missing alternative (elemental combat spells) and the possibility for overcast without risk. The removal or reduction overcast would have been completely enough.

SYL

Against mediocre opponents, a good shooter can still disable his foes with an SMG or pistol. A mage has to be a demigod to have any chance of incapacitating a target with a single direct combat spell. Fortunately, Indirect spells are quite effective, so it's not like spellcasters are helpless.

And the thread has gone full circle

I would argue that this is, in part, a failure to consider how different of an environment SR5 is. In SR5, Magicians have a choice between a spell group that, at high force, can one shot a target and carries wonderful secondary effects at any force and a spell group that WILL hit, no matter what, but that doesn't do as much damage. I simply cannot see how you can argue that the latter is useless in SR5's environment, where your indirect spell or firearm attack connecting is very, very far from guaranteed. Their use has changed, but I simply cannot see "useless" as a defensible assertion.

In shadowrun missions, most fights start with that... they end with it too... Some high initiative mage throws a F12 or F16 stunball... and as a GM unless there's a mage present for the NPCs who can put up a hell of a counterspell, the combat ends.

That.

Although it has been stated repeatedly over the course of this discussion and someone who thinks combat spells should one hit targets by default (even when they are almost guarateed to hit), will probably not see this argument. I do not think that, mages should have a good chance to one-hit and opponent, using a combat spell. Still a specialized combat mage will get to the point, where he can one-hit opponents. This will not be likely with dcs, but that is not what they are for. DCS are almost guaranteed damage, even on targets that eat bullets for breakfast or dodge like they have no mass at all.

By the way, onehitting a professional shadowrunner (a samurai for example) would not be much harder than to onehit the generic passerby with a dcs - most of them still do not pack a willpower stat over 4.

So 50% of 1 Spellcategory out of 5, is not the "wrath of god lightnigstrike", that kills on sight, anymore as it has been redefined to be a scalpel, that most mudanes can not even hope to counter, as it ignores most defenses - get over it.
I love to be viable as a mage, not because of overpowered combatspells, but because I know how to use my tools.

In point of fact, were direct spells to be capable of an easy one shot, balance could only exist if it were relatively easy to avoid. I'm compelled to ask if people would have preferred dodgable direct spells.

They ARE relatively easy to avoid... Willpower 3-4, a few dice for Cover (SR4A gives +4 Dice or Removes you from View entirely) and a Friendly Spellcaster providing a few dice for defense (Counterspelling of 4 or so Dice, +2 More for Combat Specialty if applicable) and you have a decent Dice Pool (Yes, I consider 11-13 Dice decent for avoiding Direct Combat Spells). And if you take total Cover from the Spellcaster, you are Immune to Direct Combat Spells ENTIRELY. Seems pretty easy to avoid if you ask me.

So long as you have a steel door between you and someone whose genetics make up less than 1% of the population, you'll be fine!

Personal attacks are against forum rules, so I will keep the "Strawman" jokes to myself.

-DrZ

And where do the NPCs keep getting these counterspelling folks from? How does the mundane team survive the F16 Stunball?

They don't.

Corp sec might have some mages on call, but they don't have them everywhere... which means that unless you stick mages with every streetgang and at every research lab/warehouse you can't challenge a starting SR4a shadowrunning team.

No one has even broached the subject of non-conductivity or other such armor boosts for dealing with elemental stuff

why would we? they're helpful, but the simple fact is, indirect combat spells are also not to a point where you need to go hide in a deep, dark hole and hope that the scary magician doesn't see you, as a general rule. a magician can use indirect spells, and they will generally only use one that is much stronger than a pistol if they're in a dire situation. certainly, the force 10 ball lightning is scary... but it's scary for the magician to cast that, too, because it will be 11 drain for the magician (and that's an awful lot of drain to soak). preparations help, but you can probably only manage a few before a run of that strength, and you run the risk of taking that as physical drain and compromising the entire run if you don't use reagents (and while reagents used to load up on low-force buff spells stored in sustaining focuses are an amazing deal for the cost, that's quite a bit of money to spend on what essentially amount to bullets that have a shelf-life of less than a day. plus, if we're talking area effects, they are centered on the preparation, which means you have to throw it like a grenade... it's generally cheaper and as effective or better to just throw an actual grenade most of the time).

No, they're impossible to avoid. You can only soak the damage. Further, Cover applies only to Defense Tests - which you do not get against Direct spells. And Counterspelling is doubly rare - not only does it require a caster, but in fact that caster only has a small number of total dice to provide until they refresh. So the only reliable means of defense is to remove yourself from the caster's view - and if they can one shot, that situation CANNOT EVER be balanced.

Why does it need a steel door? A standard wooden door will suffice, or a packing crate, or anything else that is opaque that you can hide behind. Should be a lot of those things around any given area.