So it just came up in a game on these board: can a spellcaster control who is affected by an area mana spell?

Actually it was the invisibility illusion spell, but the point is that several targets can be affected and the spellcaster might want some of them not to even have to roll a spell resistance.

Our assessment is that the rules don't give us an answer one way or the other so a GM call was made. I'm interested in what the people on these board think about which way makes more sense, or even if one way is more supported by the rules or the spirit of the rules.

It also made me wonder about whether I had just found a possible explanation for the very strange Drain codes for area mana combat spells. All combat spells tend to have the same drain codes for a given range, except for area mana combat spells which are more severe (F for manaball as opposed to F-1 for fireball). I was thinking maybe, although it's not made clear anywhere, the reason for this different could be that you can hand pick which targets are affected by the spell within the area of effect. It would be an interesting added bonus to those poor mana combat spells.

I didn't post it in our thread, but I think the existence of the Metamagic (Spell Shaping) power kind of precludes this unless it is explicitly stated. Direct Spells (Mana or Physical) just kind of suck in 5e except for a few corner cases (like when Run & Gun comes out and the only thing that can scratch the paint so to speak on Heavy Hardened Milspec Armor is a direct-combat spell).

True, it does specifically call for the ability to create a bubble inside a cast area spell. So maybe there isn't even a debate to be had, thanks.

One note, mana spells (paticularly Manaball) are pretty good to take down materialized spirits causing chaos. Since they're dual natured, your spellcaster can just astrally perceive and start dropping manabombs on the astral plane, no danger of hurting your crew.

Not the most common circumstance, but true.

At least in SR4, it was always my understanding that you could just use the rules about sacrificing dice to adjust the size of an area of effect to create small "pockets" inside the larger affected region.

If you can shrink the radius of the effect starting from the circumferance, why couldn't you shrink the radius starting from the centerpoint?

~Umi

You can, but all of those abilities (increase size, decrease size, and making holes) are now rolled up into the Metamagic (Spell Shaping) ability in SR5.

Bizarre that they would change a basic spellcasting option into a metamagic like that.

~Umi