Greetings Chummers! First the question.

If I cast a force 4 manabolt spell and I have 13 spellcasting, I will toss 17 dice on the cast. I get say, 5 successes. Now what is the next step. Does the recieving party get to 'dodge' like guns or is it now on to dmg and you resist it with Intuition+Willpower?

If the guy who is the target of the spell does he get to 'dodge' the spell using his spellcasting? I thought for sure there was does he hit or not step here but maybe I am wrong.

Next, I need some basic sheets to keep track of condition monitors. Is there a place or tool I can print or use that allows me to print up say 10 'condition' box sets for various NPC and such? Like I want 6 with a body of 6, 4 with a body of 8 and 4 with a body of 10 all on one sheet.

Thanks much for all your help!

First off you'd only roll 13 dice instead of 17. You only roll your spellcasting + magic no matter what force you cast manabolt at. If you rolled 5 successes only 4 would go to damage because successes cannot exceed the force you set the spell at. That would be 4 points of physical damage which can only be resisted by willpower or counterspelling.

For damage trackers I'd recommend just using something like Excel and make tables if you want something specific. I'm not sure if there's a specific program made for it.

Ok this is a HUGE clarification. The 5E book seems to word it differently. This seems to say that my spellcasting ability which is 13+Force test...is this only 13 or 13 + the force of the spell of my magic rating?
STEP 4: CAST SPELL
Casting a spell involves some mental preparation and a
Complex Action. Make a Spellcasting + Magic [Force]
Test, including dice pool modifiers for injury, sustained
spells, and so on. Any opposition roll or threshold you
need to reach is listed in the spell description. If the
number of hits (not net hits) you get (after applying the
limit or Edge spending) exceeds your Magic rating, the
spell’s Drain is Physical instead of Stun damage.

You make a Spellcasting + Magic Test and your limit is normally the Force of the spell... The limit may be altered via reagents or bypassed through Edge Expenditure.

OK so if my spellcasting is 13 and the force of the spell is 5 then how many dice am I throwing? I understand the rule as saying I am tossing 18 dice down. If the successes exceed my magic rating of 7 then I would take physical drain.

What is your Magic Rating? I assume that your Skill is 13? or is that the combination of Skill + Magic you are quoting?
The force of the spell has absolutely NOTHING to do with the number of dice thrown.

Anything in brackets is your limit for the roll, and not included in the dice pool itslelf.

Ok I am a bit confused. The spellcasting dice pool is 15.

The force of the manabolt is 5.

The magic rating of the caster is 8

Help me learn what is tossed down. Ok on the chummer sheet her pool is 15. Spellcasting rank is 7, Magic is 8 so I guess her pool is 15. So is that the total dice she throws? If she has 7 successes is the max damage only 5? No more?

Aptitude increases max skill rank by 1(so 7 for char gen, 13 over all).

If Spellcasting is at 7, and magic is at 7, she should roll 14 dice(7+7). Other bonuses can effect this.

If she casts manabolt at force 5, she would roll 14 dice.

So she rolls her 14 dice. If she gets one hit, the spell does one damage. If two, does two. If three, does three. If four, does four. If five, does five. Now, if she gets six hits, it still does five damage, because that is the force of the spell, no matter how many hits more she gets, it does five.

Then the target rolls its willpower. This reduces the amount of damage taken by the number of hits.

Then the mage resists drain.

Any number in square brackets is a limit. You can not get greater hits than the limit with out special stuff. Usually it is a hard number for guns, attributes/special limits for melee weapons and skills, cyberdeck attributes for martix, and the force choosen by the caster for magic.

Ok got, now moving on to drain...

Spellcasting ranks is 7, magic rating is 8,..Mage casts a 'force 7' powerbolt. She throws 15 dice and gets 5 successes. The resist roll shows 2 successes! So I mark off 3 boxes of dmg on the target. Now Drain...

Does she roll for drain 7 minus 3 or is it on the original successes of 5 minus 3?

Please help this is also something we have doing wrong!

Powerbolt has a drain of Force - 3. So at Force 7, it has a drain of 4. It will be 4 Stun if the magician has a Magic attribute of 7 or higher. It will be 4P if they have a magic of less than 7. They resist this damage with whatever drain dice they use, usually Willpower + Logic or Charisma. This depends on tradition and will say in the tradition of the magician (Hermetic, Shamanic, etc).
The drain test is unrelated to the attack test (Magic + Spellcasting) and whatever resistance test the target made.
Spells always use Force +/- something for drain. Hits in the Spellcasting test have no bearing on this value.

Thank you mantis, just to be clear even though she set the 'force of the spell to 7' if she only got 3 successes (after the target resisted) then she still has to drain against 7 and not 3.

Correct - Drain is separate from Success. You could throw a Force 7 Spell, get no successes and you would still resiust the Drain at Force 7 (Whatever Drain Code that may be based upon the spell used).

Since I now understand the mechanics better it appears that direct dmg spells do not seem as effective as guns. What force do you all cast 'powerbolt' at, assuming you all have a magic of 6 or likely higher?

My Direct Damage Spells are generally cast at Magic Rating, and then manipulated through either Reagents or Edge. Full Disclosure, My Character's magic ratings (when I play a caster) generally fall in the 3-5 range at Character Generation.

However much I need to minimize drain. I mean, I don't really use direct combat spells this edition, but the drain isn't too bad so a higher force aint terrible, but I want to make sure not to eat too much stun.

Why would you not use direct dmg spells? If you all are under the gun what would you be doing? Shielding others? buffing? just wondering. The person in question is a new player and she has a mystic adept with both spells and adept powers.

Magic does seem less powerful then it used to in 2nd edition..

Indirect spells, unless the target is heavily armored, they do more damage. Still some advantages to direct spells, but I personally would rather throw a fireball/flamethrower type spell.
Or manipulation spells, but most groups don't just allow those willynilly.

I'm just curious, here, but where are you getting spellcasting skills of 13+ dice, Magic ratings of 8, etc, etc, with someone that's a brand new player? I'm worried there might be more than one fundamental misunderstanding going on here.

If not using spells, My Mages use weapons. Guns have absolutely no drain attached to them whatsoever, and if drain is a concern, then my magician characters shoot.