I know, I know...

It´s a pretty dumb question and you´re probably answered enough of it. But the doubt remains. I recently started playing Shadowrun again (after almost 8 years) and struck myself with this dumb problem. Let me tell you how I came into this:

The players were making their characters, I was busy helping them with it (only two of them played my previous SR campaigns, and even them weren´t very sure of what they were doing), and one of them had the brilliant (no irony implied) idea of doing a mage. Great. A mage. There´s only grinding machines in the team (two mercs, a sam, a rigger and a physAd), so a mage could be a good addition. When he goes into the skills, he asks, "it´s sorcery I use to lob spells, right?" Not very sure, but feeling that it seems right, I answer that he is correct. "Great! I gonna put a 6 in this."

In the second gaming session, I read the magic section carefully and discovered that you don´t roll sorcery to use the spells. You roll the spells themselves. And then told him that. "OK", he answered, "my spells have high force, it´s ok. But... what use has Sorcery, aside astral combat?" I couldn´t answer him. A friend of mine has the 3rd ed. corebook and said that in 3rd ed. you roll Sorcery to sling spells.

And then, next gaming sesion, I said "guys, sorry, but let´s get back to Sorcery. Use the spells power just for what they are: power reference." It was OK for them, thank God.

Am I right? I mean, I read the Spell use section in 2nd ed. more than 10 times, and it says explicitly that you roll the SPELL force. So what good is Sorcery for?

Can anyone help me?

The Magic Pool, in SR2, is equal to the character's Sorcery Skill. These are the extra dice that he can use when casting spells or resisting drain. The Magic Pool refreshes at the start of a combat turn. See SR2 p. 85.

In third edition the character rolls Sorcery Skill. Spell Pool is one-third of (Int + Wis + Magic), rounded down, and can be added to spell casting or the drain resistance test.

Ahhhh the good old days.

When damage affected ALL rolls. Including Drain.

/sniff
/sniff

Games were so much more deadly then.

We're still doing it that way - so drain really sucks.

We were following the old rules until a few months ago too.

Now you just have outrageous TN's for casting and decent numbers for drain.

Was fun when the mage was hurling a Serious level Manabolt with a serious wound. Not to mention said drain from the successful casting of said manabolt.

Can you say OUCH!!!

Grinder ...

Thanks.

I'll look this up when I get home (GM is going to need it in writing). I don't know if we'll change the way were playing, but his is good to know.

Can anyone throw a page number at me showing where in SR2 it said that damage modifiers affected drain? The way I've always played it as a GM is that drain is a damage resistance test (because it IS, when you think about it), and therefore you don't have to add to your target number for already being wounded. I'd like a way to make the mages consider drain a little more, but I don't want to just arbitrarily say "You start taking a lot more damage;" I'd much rather have a book section to point at.

Thanks, guys, looks like I was right. Sorcery is good-for-nothing when lobbing spells in SR2. Anyway, I´ll keep using it in SR3 rules, that being, we´ll roll Sorcery to see if the spell works. Looks more logical to me.