I had an idea earlier today for how to (possibly) balance overcasting: in addition to Physical drain damage, overcast spells require an additional Complex Action for each point beyond the caster's Magic attribute. A Magic 6 magician casting Stunbolt at Force 8 takes 3 turns to do so (one Complex Action to cast a spell, plus two for overcasting two points beyond his Magic). This makes overcasting useful when ambushing, but reduces its utility in regular combat.

Thoughts?

Have to say I am not a fan of that option...
Not sure that I currently have anything to suggest in its place, though.

Is overcasting a super common occurrence in your games? I have seen it happen in our games, but not excessively.
And though I understand that others have issues with it in their games, We do not seem to have many issues with it in our games.
Though my thoughts on that might fall under the TJ Fallacy.

It's not super common, but my players aren't afraid of it, either. I don't want to ban it altogether, because I like the trope of punching above your weight at the cost of potentially killing yourself.

To be honest, that has always been the dilemma that characters at our table run into...
No One puts a Gun to their head to potentially attack an opponent, and that is exactly what overcasting represents.
And yes, you can always build a character to trivialize Drain, but 1 Physical or 10 Physical, it is still ludicrous to think that a living character would do such a thing casually.

The only thing that would balance it would be running often enough that high amounts of physical damage actually impact your next run.

Or having enough higher end encounters that the spellcasters feel they must overcast more than a few spells during a given run.

Not something I've done in writing or gameplay, though I did have a player once spend two points of Edge for the overcasting of a single spell. One for the spellcasting itself, and the next for the Drain resistance. Never did have a player with a caster optimized for dealing with Drain (they've viewed fetish spells as too great a liability for the benefit), but they've also rarely done an overcast.

I guess that would make overcasting in combat completely useless.

In SR4A (not sure, which system you refer to here, but I guess it is SR4 more than SR5, since overcasting direct combat spells being too easy is much more of a problem there) I used the following house rules to give overcasting the bite it is supposed to have.

1) Overcasting causes Drain twice, once for physical and once for stun damage (two seperate Drain resistance tests).

2) Drain from overcasting is calculated differently. Instead of (F/2) you use (F-M+M/2) or simpler (F-M/2; round down after (!) subtracting).

What does that formula do? Essentially, the points of Force that exceed your Magic attribute are not halved. For example, Force 9 Powerbolt with Magic 5: Drain is F/2, so it becomes F-M/2 here, which is 9-5/2 = 9-2.5 = 6.5 rounded down to 6.

You do not actually need to remember the formula, since it is really simple. Calculate Drain as if you would use a Force equal to your Magic attribute. Then add +1 for every point Force exceeds Magic, i.e. (F-M), on top. For example, a Force 5 Powerbolt has a Drain Value of 2. Add 4 more for the 4 points of Force the Force 9 Powerbolt exceeds your Magic 5, for a total of 6.

Of course, one could dial it up even more and simply make it (F) instead of (F/2).

3) The -1 Drain Value modifier for Stun spells is removed; i.e. all Stun spells (Stun Bolt, Stun Ball) have +1 DV.

Bye
Thanee

I still like our solution best - we banned overcasting. Problem solved completely.

Such helpful criticism of the idea. "It's not a problem in my group", "we banned it".
That being said, yes, overcasting can be problematic and I'm surprised it's not exploited more often. I usually don't regulate it, but I'll be open with mage players and ask them for a gentleman's agreement not to overdo it. That also works.

In regards to your actual question Tanegar: I think it is an interesting idea and merits testing. You should be aware, however, that (as Thanee already said) it would invalidate overcasting as a tool for in-combat use, as well as re-define its role as mostly a surprise and ambush tactic. At least in the area of combat spells. I do like how it feels in my mind, the mage concentrating for a while to unleash a potentially self-damaging spell. Very fluffy, IMO.

Other ideas I've toyed with is replacing the F/2 with F during drain. That also has the side effect that lower magic characters can still overcast without suiciding while higher magic characters have correspondingly higher risks.

you could always combine the two; overcasting is force drain. for every extra action you spend building up to it, remove half a point, to a minimum drain value of F/2 drain (plus or minus, based on the spell). so after 5 actions overcasting a force 8 spell (4 to reduce the drain, one to actually cast the spell) it has the current book value, but you can still risk the extra drain if you need to cast it immediately.

That certainly works. Maybe a bit harsh, though.

I do like the concept of overcasting, using more power than you can handle. It should be reasonably balanced, though.

For spirits, I do the same. Simply ban it. High Force spirits are just too powerful compared to how easy it is to summon them. This also gives more incentive to actually raise Magic.

But for spells, I like the option to be there, but there should be a price, so it isn't done without thinking. Therefore, higher Drain seems like the way to go. For me, anyways.

Bye
Thanee

The more things change.....nice to see the TJ Fallacy can still be invoked.

Adding cast time for overcasting is not so odd, it is sort of like thread weaving is for Earthdawn with higher powered spells taking longer.
But is it worth paying it at 1 Complex per point of OC? Dunno….

Still an interesting idea, will have to ponder this and dig through old table notes.

In our case, it wasn't just an out-of-the-blue decision. We had a couple players who had cooked up some means to use spirit allies, sustained spells, etc. to survive overcasting attempts that really would otherwise have killed them to make "cast nuke on demand" mage characters. We finally said "screw this" and just banned it outright, as if we cooked up some complex restrictions they'd probably just rules-hack their way around those as well.

A blunt solution, but it's worked.

Or just have the opposition do the same.

Some seem to forget that what the players can do, so too can the bad guys.

Indeed... I think I even mentioned it in my post above

True, but we have been away so it's nice to see the same gang still here.

Definitely agree

Some interesting idea I just had, since overcasting can put you in physical pain - or risk your life. I'd say that there is no need to change the rules.
It is a very unpleasant and dangerous thing to do, and to restrict it a GM can require a composure test to attempt it. The threshold can be adjusted to how lethal it may be to the overcasting character.

THAT is a pretty elegant solution...
I like it.

Not sure how popular that will be, though. But, at the risk of once again invoking the TJ Fallacy, Overcasting should be a rarity, not a given, and this would provide some mechanics that I would prefer over Reagent juggling. With Reagents, it is trivially easy to mitigate Overcasting Shenanigans.

The "problem" only really exists in SR4.

For example, a Force 9 Stun Bolt in SR4 causes a whopping 3P Drain (i.e. nothing at all). There is no danger in casting such a spell, you can do it all day long, pretty much.

On the target, however, the spell is rather devastating, causing 9+net hits stun damage. Most targets, that do not have the luxury of magical protection, will go down with one such spell, having just their Willpower to resist the full Magic+Spellcasting pool of the mage.


I believe, the OP is thinking of examples like this.

Bye
Thanee

There's an optional rule listed about Direct Combat Spells where the caster takes additional Drain based on how many net hits are chosen to be added to the DV at a 1:1 ratio. (SR4a, page 204, last paragraph about Direct Combat Spells.) That 3P Drain from the example can potentially grow quite quickly, depending on how many net hits are added, though granted the average will be probably 4 net hits (for 7P Drain) for a knockout.