Hi all,

I have this recollection that the force of a spell limits the available successes that can be rolled while casting it. Any excess successes would be discarded. I was positive that I read this in the SR3 book, but when I went looking for it I couldn't find it. Am I thinking of a previous edition of SR or confusing the basic rules with a house rule?

ie. I roll 10 dice while casting a Force 3 spell with TN4. This should give 5 successes, but because the force of the spell is 3, I can only count 3 of the successes.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris

I think you're confusing it with a house rule.

I think there was something like that in relation to spell pool usage in one of the older editions (where you rolled the spell's force as base dice and sorcery just provided spell pool). However, the only old rules I read recently are the 2nd edition anchoring rules, so I could be wrong.

Wait, misread. Some spells limit effective successes by thier force, it's in the specific spell description. Extra successes aren't discarded, they still apply against dispelling, but bring no further benefit from the primary spell effect.

I'm pretty sure that, as a rule, most spells aren't limited in successes by the Force in SR3. Some are limited, but it mentions this specifically in the description.

We play with a house rule that you can't get more successes (or more of a bonus, where applicable, for things like Increase (Attribute)) than the Force of the spell. Stops idiots running around with Force 1 Improved Invis spells with 12 successes. In my opinion a low force spell should never be unbeatable like that.

Anyway, could well be a carry over from the good old days of SR2 in our case.

It alldepends on the spell as in some spell descriptions it claerly staes the number of sucesses, eg treat or heal spells.


torz x

By Canon, no, there is no such broad-based limitation in SR3. But most spells are limited to some degree by their Force.

Levitate's speed is based on Force.
Increased Attribute won't go more than its Force.
Max Str/Quick of Magic Fingers won't go over Force.
...etc...

Most combat spells are not directly limited like this, but countering that, the Force is the target number that the opponent must roll to try to avoid the spell. So yes, while there's no "limit in successes" per say, how many Net-Successes (and thus final damage Staging) you will get will be strongly affected by the Force of the spell.

Check each spell's specific description for details.

It does allow some really scary things though

Force 2 (deadly) manabolt.. by someone with really high spellpool and sorcery.. (8 in both).. well.. you can get a lot of successes with that, and all you have to do is get more than they have willpower and you've killed them.

It's not the spell or force in that case that's doing the killing though, it's just how good the person is at throwing the spell

I know -- it's just that the threshold of successes tends to be lower than with a gun. You can dodge the shot, and soak it, so you can do a lot better. Against a spell, you just have willpower and/or spell defence if the mage really likes you, so it takes fewer successes..

And a force 2 manabolt at deadly is just TN 2 + wound modifiers to resist drain on.. Can go all the way up to force 4 with no measurable difference (base TN stays at 2), and it's even more pronounced there.

A list that I wrote up a while back when the same question came up in our group:

Shapechange/Transform are surely limited by force. Oops, successes aren't limited by force.

Successes in casting Fashion are added to force (2:1) to effect armor rating.

True Dawnshadow; almost every awakened Shadowrunner starts w/ a Sorcery of 6; most have spell pools of 5+. A Power Foci is harder, but at Force 2, that's not that hard.

My concerns (if it were my character) is a Force 4 combat spell; that means on average, your opposition is going to score 50% successes. In our runs, the average target numbers I've seen are about 5-6 (we go up against semi-pros these days), which means the caster is only going to score 16.7%-33% successes. If the opposition have any mages playing Spell Def against me (which is slowly becoming the norm as we get stronger), it wouldn't be hard for them to blow my spells off.

Yes, the mage has more dice, but with only a few unlucky dice, your spell will be hash. Don't forget; Combat spells are usually all-or-nothing affairs. And if it's the latter, you (the mage) have just painted a target on your chest by lighting up that spell (insert old Shadowrun axiom about geeking and mages...).

For me, any spells that have to go against enemy opposition shouldn't be lower than Force 6; any less and you're asking to be resisted way too much for my taste.

This is a thread around about this exact subject where I referenced 4 places in SR3. I'll see if I can find it.

It's one of the items that changed from SR2 to SR3.

Mmhmm. I agree 100%. Been working on getting his anti-personnel spells up, bit by bit, but, mostly because he's a shaman of Darkness (every time someone finds out that they go 'hmm. Never seen that one before') , he has to write them himself.

The only people the spell is any good against are goons really. Everyone else is will 6+ typically. The flip side, is that with the goons, there are typically a lot of them, so anything to clean their numbers out is a good thing -- especially when the drain isn't that high. Really does wonders on the surprise round. Throw everything, and the goons are resisting with only a few dice.

Shielding and spell defense are the other things to worry about.. he'd stopped a lot of spells, up until he had to go toe-to-toe against a hermetic mage that threw force 10+ spells. Desperate defense just isn't enough.

Haven't had mages defending against his spells yet -- the defense seems to be 'stunbolt' or 'manabolt'

I can't seem to find the post I made, but here's another that asks the "does damage apply to drain test" question:

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...l=sr3\.127

EDIT - Check SR3.126, 180, 183

Thanks everybody for the responses. I'll have to fess up to my gaming group that I was wrong. Maybe we'll just adopt it as a house rule to prevent the Unstoppable Manabolt 2 of DEATH.

In any case, thanks. I can stop looking in my book for that rule.

Chris

I talked it over with my GM and we'll be using the rule anyways as a house rule. He likes that it gives characters a reason to buy spells at higher forces. I like it because an enemy mage can't fry me by rolling a fistful of dice that I can't hope to match.

Can anyone see reasons why this would be a bad rule to adopt?

Thanks,
Chris

Well, with focus addiction, it may make carrying sustaining foci more of a balancing act... which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Just a nitpick ... Legal is Force 2 and under with regards to anything magic. A permit is needed with anything 3 and over.

Yeah yeah ... It was 6 AM, I'm still up and I misread the post.