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Clank
Hi, first time here and wondering if I could ask a question.

I can use dice from my Magic pool on an elemental manipulation spell, like Fireball, but I was wondering if I can use some dice from my Combat pool since you make a ranged attack when you cast the spell (you actually have to aim it like a weapon). The book says you can only affect magic spells with your magic pool and I can understand that (like if I increased the area of a spell by reducing the dice I roll and supplemented that with Spell Pool dice), but what if I'm making an attack roll? Granted the attack is magical in the case of Fireball, but there's a physical action (having to roll a 4+ b/c your aiming the thing). Any help would be... well, helpful. :) I mean it would be great if I could use some cambat dice on the attack and save my magic pool for drain, but that might be a little too twinkish.


Also, is there any benefit to casting elemental manipulation spells? I had an elementalist concept for a character (conjured elementals and has EleMan spells), but I'm losing out; my friends all think a mage without the power- and mana- spells aren't worth anything since EleMan spells can be dodged and the power/mana spells can't and on average your TN's are gonna be 3's for your typical goon and for your nemesis NPC, it's better to have a 5/6+ TN that can't be dodged, than a 4+ that can. I've been telling them that the EleMan spells have secondary effects and that they can affect people you can't normally see (like Fireball can reach around corners and powerball can't), but they don't buy it. I've had to spend Karma on ManaBolt and PowerBall just to make myself useful. Am I wrong in liking the Elemental Manipulation spells, or am I just wasting my time on them?
GunnerJ
I wouldn't allow combat pool for elm. manips. But houserule as you like.

As to your second issue: average TNs of 3 for power and mana bolts? Just how kind is your GM? Somehow, my combat shaman always ended up fighting the most willful people ever, as my base TNs for stunbolt or manabolt were always in the 4-8 range; forget using powerbolt, there were too many orks and trolls to make it worthwhile.* And that's before we account for Sheilding or background count.

The elemental manipulation spell's main advantage is that it works just like a magic gun. Normal combat spells fizzle if the target matches the caster's successes, but targets of elem. manips. have to stage the sucker down. Plus, your base TN before mods never varies. In addition, those secondary effects can be VERY useful. Lightning ignores half impact armor. Acid destroys armor. There's a whole slew more listed in MitS.

*And BTW, you can tell your fellow players to ditch powerbolt and manabolt, because stunbolt is the only way to go. There's no reason at all to use manabolt over stunbolt, and only in rare situations is powerbolt useful, and the drain's lower.
BitBasher
Or the target has a pain editor so ignores stun damage and kills you for trying biggrin.gif
Clank
The EleMan Spell's drain is worse than the stun/mana/power spells, so unless I wanna die, I end up casting a reduced spell, like a 6M Ball Lightning spell, which has a drain of what, 4D (it's F+1, DL+2, right)? Even so isn't Stunbolt/ball resisted by Will? Doesn't that mean is almost useless against Mages who want a high will for drain? I ended up taking a power spell and a mana spell to fight mages and samurai, respectively. Having secondary effects are cool, but 1)the force of the spell has to be atleast twice the resistance rating to affect it (mentioned under sorcery tests errata), and if you do you have to roll higher than the Obj. Rests, rating on 2d6 (mentioned somewhere in SR3; sorry I don't have the book near me). Basically, unless I'm interpreting this waaayyy incorrectly, I'll never affect a computer with a secondary effect (it's a highly processed item and I can't remember, but I thought the resistance rating for that was in the double digits). If my numbers are wrong, please correct me.
Eyeless Blond
Of course the drain is worse; you're doing more with it. Take, for instance, Acid Stream. By casting a Force-6 Serious version of Acid Stream, you have to take 4D Drain (3D if you use a fetish, which you really should for E-Ms anyway.) If you hit someone, they resist 6S damage+successes from the acid, not modified by armor or armor mors unless someone has chemseals, and if they don't stage it all the way to nothing they have +4 to *all* TNs for the rest of the turn. Then there's secondary effects; if you roll an 10 or better on 2d6, you affect everything with an OR of 8 or less. This includes armor, simple electronics (like a credstick), the floor, etc etc. This is the kind of thing you use to attack an enemy mage, because all of those fetishes and foci usually have ORs of 3-5.

The best thing to hit a highly-armed sammie with is a high-DL, low-Force Flamethrower. Sure, the sammie won't be hurt by the primary damage, but you've just cooked off every bullet, grenade, and bit of C-12 he's carrying, and that's gotta hurt! biggrin.gif
GunnerJ
QUOTE (BitBasher)
Or the target has a pain editor so ignores stun damage and kills you for trying

Point.
Luke Hardison
QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)
he best thing to hit a highly-armed sammie with is a high-DL, low-Force Flamethrower. Sure, the sammie won't be hurt by the primary damage, but you've just cooked off every bullet, grenade, and bit of C-12 he's carrying, and that's gotta hurt!


SURELY Flamethrower won't cook off plastic explosives .... IRL you can light C4 on fire and cook over it without danger. Lightening bolt, on the other hand, has a small chance to hit the proper voltage to set off the stuff.
Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (Luke Hardison)
SURELY Flamethrower won't cook off plastic explosives .... IRL you can light C4 on fire and cook over it without danger. Lightening bolt, on the other hand, has a small chance to hit the proper voltage to set off the stuff.

Er, right. My bad. But still, cooking off all the grenades and bullets in a Sam's ammo belt, along with setting his clothes and hair on fire, is bad enough, yes? nyahnyah.gif
Zazen
QUOTE (Luke Hardison)
SURELY Flamethrower won't cook off plastic explosives .... IRL you can light C4 on fire and cook over it without danger.

Not quite "without danger", if it's on fire and you smack it, it'll explode. So maybe it's ok burning by itself (in his pocket or backpack sarcastic.gif ), but the clip that's blowing up right next to it is certainly enough to push it over the edge.

BTW, the thing about plastic explosives using electricity to blow up is a TV-show myth. They use blasting caps for it in the real world.
sidartha
Also, as I never tire of saying wink.gif Area El-Maps will hit what you personaly can't see.
"Are you on a shadowrun and you get pinned down by some mook shooting from around a corner and you just can't get by? Well my friend what you need is the new Acid Wave 2064!!! With this new spell you can not only hit and posably kill the happless moron, but even if he or she lives you will have burned off their armor, melted their weapons to goo and even prevented the sap from running so your Sammie can finish the job. Cause after all the elimination of any witnesses is always a good idea" biggrin.gif
Cain
EM's can be combined with the Enhance Aim spell. That alone should settle the other players.

If you're firing off an AoE Elemental spell, then the TN to dodge should be at least a 6, if not higher. Since they affect the entire area equally, some GMs may impose an ever higher dodge penalty. Also, technically you can make a called shot with an AoE elemental spell. Called Shots allow you to bypass the normal restrictions on vehicles, so you can do damage to them-- something a normal combat spell isn't likely to do. Also, some specific secondary effects will affect some specific things, regardless of relative force or OR-- any electrical attack against a drone, for example, can cause feedback on a RCD.

Basically, manabolt and stunball are great for moving down lots of weak opposition. You can just pound them with lots and lots of successes, and not have to worry about fizzle. But if you really need to cause a lot of damage in a hurry, the EMs are the way to go.
BitBasher
QUOTE
EM's can be combined with the Enhance Aim spell. That alone should settle the other players.
I could not see this anywhere, can you provide a quote to that effect?
A Rodent of Unusual Size
They use the rules for Ranged Combat Tests, including all standard modifiers, with Sorcery being used as the Ranged Combat Skill. Enhanced Aim works on all ranged attacks. That pretty much says it all.
Cain
Enhance Aim provides its bonus to any ranged attack, within the range of the spell. All EM's are treated as normal ranged attacks, with sorcery and magic pool in place of the usual skill and combat pool.

Given the other restrictions on Enhance Aim, this is the one application that makes it all worthwhile.


Edit: Dammit, Doc, why the hell do you have to be so fast on the keyboards! nyahnyah.gif
Joker9125
Holy Crap dude I didnt realize that. Thats fraging awsome!!!
Abstruse
I rarely give my magicians single-target combat spells except Stunbolt because there's really not much point. Pistols: 6 and a Heavy Pistol. No drain. If you're going for a specific concept though, go for it. Nothing like the feeling of a bolt of electricity shooting from your fingers, streaking in a line and frying some poor sap in his shoes...

The Abstruse One
BishopMcQ
IMO--a lightning based spell would be almost as effective against Sams as a fire based one. You're wired reflexes shorting out and the cyber eyes only showing you snow will put a kink in many people's day.
Nikoli
What about Wreck(Fiber Optics)6? glass is a low OR (or it should be) say good bye to all your computer interface equipment (and cyber)
Eyeless Blond
Yup; all the fiber-optic glass you can see. Er, hmm...
Nikoli
Make it area affect...
GunnerJ
You still need LOS for area effect combat spells. So, even if a potential target is in range of the blast, it doesn't get effected unless you can see it.
Nikoli
I can see your gun, connected to your SL inductionpad connected to your brain via fiber optic cable
Joker9125
QUOTE (GunnerJ)
You still need LOS for area effect combat spells. So, even if a potential target is in range of the blast, it doesn't get effected unless you can see it.


Im not exactly sure that is correct. Ill have to get the books out

EDIT: Nikoli I just have to comment on your signature

QUOTE
"I really hope you don't mean that or I'll have to give you a cock punch."


Ouch! Its stuff like that that makes me think getting married isnt such a great idea.
ShadowGhost
Also, lightning has an extra bonus for attacks against cybered sammies (under wound effects rules from M&M) - "Attacks thgat cause electrical damage automatically affect cyberware and may even damage more than one system simultaneously."

So even if the sammie stages it down to a light wound - at least one cyberware system is damaged, possibly more.

And depending on which one it is, it could really affect the sammie - i.e. if he has SL2, and tons of bioware.... the SL2 is toasted.
Nikoli
Hrmm, should a taser have a similair effect on an over-wired sammie?
ShadowGhost
QUOTE (Nikoli)
Hrmm, should a taser have a similair effect on an over-wired sammie?

Yep.

Page 127 M&M - "This includes damage from tasers, stun batons, electrified fences, electrical critter powers, lighting elemental manipulation spells and so on."
Nikoli
Oh man, that is the last time my Sam shakes hands.
Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (Joker9125 @ May 28 2004, 03:44 PM)
QUOTE (GunnerJ)
You still need LOS for area effect combat spells. So, even if a potential target is in range of the blast, it doesn't get effected unless you can see it.


Im not exactly sure that is correct. Ill have to get the books out

The section you want is Spell Targetting, near the end of page 181. It's correct.

(Edit:) Even if it didn't, there's still the problem that cyberware, paid for by Essence, is no longer "inanimate," but rather is part of the metahuman body. This is why you can target spells through cybereyes and so forth.
GunnerJ
QUOTE (Nikoli)
I can see your gun, connected to your SL inductionpad connected to your brain via fiber optic cable

But can you see the fiber optic cable?
A Rodent of Unusual Size
Why on earth are you guys getting that specific? Wreck: Electronics is quite sufficient. That's more than enough to qualify as a Very Specific Target.
Person 404
Wreck: Electronics should work about as well on cyberware as Wreck: Corpse does on people. Paying for cyberware with essence makes it part of you, so far as magic is concerned.
Cain
But that typically has a high OR. Granted, one success at Deadly will break whatever it is; but it's not the sure thing some players want. The Monkeywrench spell (Wreck: Electronics) isn't overall that much better than a lightning-based spell with a good called shot. If you really want to get nasty, an Overload spell (Lightning bolt with VRT: Electronics) should do the trick as well.
GunnerJ
QUOTE (A Rodent of Unusual Size)
Why on earth are you guys getting that specific? Wreck: Electronics is quite sufficient. That's more than enough to qualify as a Very Specific Target.

You're certainly right about that spell; but I wasn't getting specific at all. I was responding to someone else's specificality and bizzare assertion that seeing something connected to the actual target of a spell is sufficient to target it.
A Rodent of Unusual Size
Well, if you just want a spell that'll muck with electronics like those found in smartgun adapters, laser sights, and engines, an Elemental Manipulation spell with Elemental Effect: Water will do the trick. You even get to apply the Stun Damage modifier, lowering the Drain Power by -1.
toturi
I love the smell of munchkins in the morning... biggrin.gif
Eyeless Blond
Smells like... cheese. biggrin.gif
mfb
it smells like the burning flesh of lesser beings. mmm.
A Rodent of Unusual Size
Did I miss something?

If it's reference to my last post, and particularly the "elemental water is already Stun damage" bit, it's no different than applying the Illusion Spell modifier to an illusion spell or the Detection Spell modifier to a detection spell. It only does stun damage, so it uses the Stun Damage modifier. Just like despite the fact that they're obviously all physical spells by default, you still apply the Physical Spell modifier.

Hell, a Lightning Bolt does more damage by default (since it lowers the OR) and it's still Physical when it does it.
Eyeless Blond
Hm? Oh, I was just completing the Apocalypse Now paraphrase. Kilgore rocks. biggrin.gif

Yeah, of course it's technically rules-legal; that's what makes it munchkin rather than incorrect. smile.gif Seriously, though, it still doesn't do what the above people were trying to do, and that's mess with a sam's cyberware. In fact I don't really know why water would affect any of the mentioned electronics; most of the interfaces are optical or induction-based now, so it shouldn't be too hard to give all the devices mentioned a watertight seal.

(Edit): Btw, Rodent, you share a meatbod with A Clockwork Lime, right? Just curious.
Xirces
QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)
(Edit): Btw, Rodent, you share a meatbod with A Clockwork Lime, right? Just curious.

And I thought they were both Doctor Funkenstein. Geez, I thought I had personality disorders biggrin.gif

Seriously, you cannot target cyberware with spells, in the same way that you can't target vehicle components with spells. It says so quite specifically in the rules. Somewhere.
Moonstone Spider
QUOTE
You still need LOS for area effect combat spells. So, even if a potential target is in range of the blast, it doesn't get effected unless you can see it.
Combat Spells, not EMs. The next section says that EMs affect an area like a grenade, they are blocked by physical barriers but not limited to LOS.

Out of curiosity, given how rigidly people are applying the LOS rules how is the Sterilize spell possible? You can't see any germs, no LOS, hence the spell must do nothing right?
A Rodent of Unusual Size
Right, LOS is to the target. For indirect spells like Elemental Manipulations or those that affect an area as opposed to a specific object like Sterilize, you only need to see the destination of the spell. The magic does its thing upon delivery.

But that's not why spells can't target cyberware. They can't target cyberware because there's nothing to distinguish it from flesh and bone. The cost in Essence effectively makes it as much a part of the character as their hair and fingernails are.
A Rodent of Unusual Size
Actually, I was working with the Spell Design rules just now and noticed something new that seems contradictory to the rules. Errata doesn't speak of it either.

MitS, p. 49, Spell Type, Physical Spells: A physical spell can target cyberware directly.

The example they give is a Health spell, but there is no stipulation that limits it to that category of spell. Thus, using the spell design rules, you're sadly allowed to have spells that take out cyberware. To change any Elemental Manipulation spell like that, a simple Very Restricted Target: Cyberware modifier will work just fine. frown.gif

I hate contradictory rules.
GunnerJ
QUOTE
Combat Spells, not EMs. The next section says that EMs affect an area like a grenade, they are blocked by physical barriers but not limited to LOS.


I can't see why this comment was useful. I was responding to someone suggesting the use of a Wreck(Fiber Optics) spell, which is a combat spell not an EM. He suggested making it (the comabt spell) area-effect to get around the annoyance of having to see the target, which as I pointed out wouldn't do any good.

Especiually amusing is the fact that I said "You still need LOS for area effect combat spells," to which you respond... "combat spells, not EMs." sarcastic.gif
Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (A Rodent of Unusual Size @ May 30 2004, 02:56 PM)
Actually, I was working with the Spell Design rules just now and noticed something new that seems contradictory to the rules.  Errata doesn't speak of it either.

MitS, p. 49, Spell Type, Physical Spells:  A physical spell can target cyberware directly.

The example they give is a Health spell, but there is no stipulation that limits it to that category of spell.  Thus, using the spell design rules, you're sadly allowed to have spells that take out cyberware.  To change any Elemental Manipulation spell like that, a simple Very Restricted Target: Cyberware modifier will work just fine. frown.gif

I hate contradictory rules.

Okay, sure, make your EM spell with very restricted target cyberware. Everything inside a person's meatbody gets full cover from the body, which must be punched through like all barriers before you can attack what's behind/inside it. Even dermal plating/sheathing is under the dermis. Unfortunately the spell can't affect meat, only cyberware, so I guess the spell stops there. I suppose you'll melt the troll's chipjacks and datajacks right off, though.
Hasaku
QUOTE
And I thought they were both Doctor Funkenstein. Geez, I thought I had personality disorders biggrin.gif


I prefer to call it "A Clockwork Doc FunkenWookie of Unusual Size." Seriously, though, I think he has to keep changing names so people won't see his posts, think "I don't want to deal with this right now," and skip them entirely.
A Rodent of Unusual Size
Yeah, my master plan has been thwarted. ohplease.gif I'm just so damn crafty.

On a thread-related note, take a look at Thunderbolt, Steam, and the other Elemental Manipulations whose elemental effects have them doing Stun damage by default. Compare their Damage Codes to those that don't. Notice the difference. Same would be true of a Water-based spell.
Zazen
Well, you do occasionally change your name after a rest period without any mention of your old accounts. You got pissed off a couple times when people'd call you Dr Funkenstein, too.

You can't blame anyone for speculating about your unusual name-changing behavior.
A Rodent of Unusual Size
No, I don't blame anyone for speculating anything, nor do I change names "after a rest period." I do find it obnoxious when people try and tell me why I change my name or pretend to know anything about me whatsoever; I've been changing handles on a semi-regular basis since I first had the opportunity back with my blazing fast 300 bps modem. I just happen to like change, it's that simple. It has nothing to do with "changing names so no one knows who I am" or any of the other things people vomit out in their wholly ignorant speculation. If I'm struck with an epiphany for a name that amuses me, I'll likely jump on it.

The most amusing thing, to me at least, is how so many people seem to think Doctor Funkenstein was my first name around here. I liked it enough to adopt it in a few other places, but it was hardly my first and it'll hardly be my last.

All that aside, I have no bloody idea why a select few seem to keep getting their knickers in a twist about it. If they're so shallow as to base their opinions on a post based simply upon who's saying it as opposed to what they're saying, that's their problem, not mine. But I'm certainly not going to go around announcing in every thread I post if and when I decide to change my handle -- something quite a few people around here do, I might add -- and I'm definitely not going to do it just to appease someone as apparently two-dimensional as Hasaku.

If people have a problem with it, they're free to bicker about it in a PM. Seems to me, however, that they just like to get their rocks off by derailing threads to bitch about it because they don't particularly like me. <shrugs> I don't come here for popularity contests -- I come here to discuss and play the game.

Hell, you'd be surprised about how many who loathe my opinions on the game in these threads sit around and have fun while playing the game with me in another. So what if I tend to get passionate about my opinions? I know it's not good "etiquette," but its very unlikely that I'm ever going to change who or what I am just to appease a few people who have nothing better to do than sit around and whine about me changing my handle. If someone doesn't like what I have to say at any given time, they're free to not respond. It's that simple.
Zazen
QUOTE (A Rodent of Unusual Size)
nor do I change names "after a rest period."

Well, DF took a break around December after a pretty heated thread about throwing cabers or something, and ACL showed up around March with nothing in his profile at the time.

I'm not saying that it's not just coincidence, but it does happen.
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