Besides the utter destruction of game balance, why could a person not design a spell that grants actual skill dice when using an object?

Base it on the same principle that Analyze Device grants B/R dice. They add directly to B/R skills.

Improve skill (doesn't sound like a detection, but it states what it does)

Physical
TN = OR
Sustained
Drain +1M

By analyzing the object a person is able to become attuned to the object and can improve their performance while using the object.

Familiarity with device grants -2 TN modifier. Every 2 successes gives 1 die for using object up to persons skill in using object with a maximum of spell's Force in dice.

Knowing how an object is made is not the same as knowing how to use it. You'd be implying that analyzing a gun would make you a better marksmen some how.

That and game balance, I'd say no.

this does more than tell you how the object is made. to make firearms an example, Improve Skill (Assault Rifles) would tell you (for instance) that the sights on this particular gun are off to the left by half a degree and up one degree.

i'd make the TN related to the subject's current skill somehow, though. maybe give it a threshold, or something. a guy with skill 8 is already going to know a lot of what this spell could tell him; he shouldn't gain as much benefit as would a guy with skill 4.

This does cut into the innate abilities that the adept has always enjoyed almost exclusively. But there are already spells that add to Combat Pool (Combat Sense, Deflect) and give skill dice (Analyze Device). I'd probably limit it somehow, but I think it could be balanced.

I still don't think because you know how it works that you'd get bonus skill dice. I'd consider a bonus to the TN over bonus skill dice. Still rubs me the wrong way.

I thought lower TN beats more dice as far as being helpful.

How would you do it to lower TN?

Oh a lower TN is downright broken. Consider the metamagic Attunement, which gives you a whopping -1TN, and that's with a metamagic technique that requires a specially prepared object and Karma. No mere spell should be able to lower TNs for you.

Maybe this spell would seem more balanced if it applied to only a specific subset of skills? Such as Technical only, or Combat only? I dunno; Analyze Device would be a really, really powerful spell, if it weren't for the fact that the majority of applications give you a prohibitively high TN and threshold of successes.

hm. i was actually assuming that you'd need a seperate spell for each skill: Improve Assault Rifles, Improve SUT, Improve Stealth.

If I was going to allow it I would say that your skill is successes max force, to a cap of attribute and 2 successes and points of force to have skill over attribute (eg a caster with qui 3 casting a force 6 proficiency (assault rifles) that casts with 7 successes will have a skill of 4.

It doesn’t matter what skill you already had, the new value replaces your old skill.

This makes it more in competition with skill wires than the adepts IA power.

Usually this spell will be of questionable value. Without a sustaining focus you would do as well to default to a similar weapon type (eg use your AR with your pistols skill).

Enhance Aim looks pretty tasty, sometimes. But never tasty enough for me to take.

Base TN of 6, sustained, doesn't stack with Smartlink or electronic magnification, -1 die for TWO successes, success limited to half force.

Throw in the fact that it's a detection spell (I dunno about y'all, but if I'm doing a shaman [and I almost always do], detection generally isn't one of my choices for spell boosting. Heck, I usually end up with detection penalized) and that it's touch-based?

It's tempting, but for the amount of work you put into it? You can stunball everybody .

Twice.

So many detection spells are like that. Good on paper, lousy in practise. The real problem is how they're resisted. Getting four 6s to just duplicate the Smartlink bonus (of course, only in the limited range of the spell, so no sniping) is hard enough, but to then have everyone around you making resistance rolls to cut into those successes and worse, having other mages' Spell Defense dice permenantly pecking away at those successes for everyone you ever target ever afterward just makes the spell useless.

My target can resist one of my senses. I'm sorry, but that's one of the most retarded rules I've ever read. While EA might be good for a pistol-adept baddie, that's... just.

That's so brainlessly stupid that I think I just got cancer.

WTF, FASA.

I have a character that runes round with a enhance aim 4 anchoring focus (GM house ruled it to closer to SR2 version, otherwise it would be a sustaining focus)

The combination of laser sight, optimag 3 and engance aim 4 works quite nicly.

Of cause my GM also ruled that spells that enhance a sense (as apposed to those that create a new sense) are not resisted.

Edward

I roll something like 20 dice or more with Enhance Aim on my current gunslinger / Magician's way adept. Works great for me, especially with Karma.

Uhm...how? Just curious.

Focus dice, or dice from Elementals or Ally Spirits are not counted as Pool dice, and are not limited as such.

Good to know.

I think with those drawbacks, there is no need to limit the spell by the caster's (or subject's) natural skill. I think it should replace the character's natural skill (if any).