Send in a beast/fire spirit to kill the helpless target.

Not to mention such situations aren't often relevant to the comparison of combat spells to other combat spells. If he's not 'close enough' to use Stunbolt, he's probably not close enough to use *anything*.

Stunbolt is the norm for shadowrunners because it's cheaper to use than manabolt while in most circumstances not being any worse(in fact, I'd say in the majority of cases, stun damage is superior to physical damage). I personally think stunbolt should cost the same as manabolt, and rather than reduce manabolts cost, stunbolt should be increased. Same applies for the other direct stun damage spells.

Everyone knows indirect spells are overpriced. I personally don't worry about it because indirect spells elemental effects are so vaguely defined that I don't jump at the chance to introduce their rules baggage to the game. Honestly, if you want to be good at combat, combat spells are not where to look, guns are where it's at. You can do way more damage with an Ares Alpha than an damage spell.

Quoted for Truth...

Manipulation for the Win. Health and Detection I see as equally useful, dependant upon Concept, with Illusion so close behind that they are almost equal. Combat comes in a distant last.

Got a Character, Played for almost 300 Karma, Has about 40 Spells, 20 (or so) of which are Manipulation, with the others split about evenly amongst Detection, Health, and Illusion. Not a Combat spell in sight. Interestingly enough, he is FAR more useful than the Combat Mage who can only blow a hole in something. I just use a gun to do that if combat is involved (Or a Manipulation Spell, go figure). Works for me.

The question is not about combat spells versus anything else, but direct versus indirect.

No Yera... it most directly involves them. Because no class of spells live in a vacuum. And there are many situations for which a direct mana stun spell is useless. Everyone here is completely forgetting that stunbolt is useless against barriers for example (you need a mana spell which doesn't deal stun damage to punch holes in astral barriers/wards). Stunbolt only works so long as you limit the target list to weak willed living targets.

If you increase the drain on directs by more than +1 or so... or just the stun line even. All it does is push people even more towards not taking any combat spells at all. Why do I need to worry about knocking someone out with a stunbolt when I can render them a vegetable until combat ends with a single manipulation spell and a single net success.


I believe the key to indirects isn't in screwing with their drain. But instead in playing up their INSTANTANEOUS elemental secondary effects. A player hit by a flamethrower spell is on fire... that works into some nasty distraction penalties as well as more ongoing damage. I don't necessarily agree with just lighting off ammunition (caseless ammo for sure... cased or grenades not so much). Just the ongoing fire damage should be enough to push it over the top.

Compare flamethrower at +3 drain to ignite at +0. Flamethrower goes off instantly... can set things on fire if the flames are hot enough (for things like metal, living bodies, etc.). Ignite needs to be sustained until permanent to have any effect at all.

Not at all. First, The OP asked about indirect versus direct. Breaking barriers is relevant (if marginally) to that question, but there's no reason at all to mention Health, Mental, Detection, etc. These are totally and completely irrelevant. Second, and I'm sure I've said this a few times, it's not 'stunbolt vs. everything', it's direct vs. indirect. Stunbolt is merely one clear example. Manabolt, Powerbolt, and so on are all equally part of the issue.

I agreed with Midas that the secondary effects should be great. If you choose to affect this issue by deliberately making those effects greater (to the point that the extra drain is *worth* it), that is fine. That is one valid method of addressing this issue (for those who believe an issue exists, natch).

I think that comparison is telling: +3 drain is massive, so that instantaneous effect better be amazing if Flamethrower is replacing Ignite in your arsenal (a fair-ish comparison, though against not direct vs. indirect).

First of all: Now, stunballshould not cost the same as manaball.
Thats not only a SR thing, thats nearly the same in every RPG. Stun is cheaper than physical.


I stay with my point form the beginning: There should be differances between indirect and direct spells.
Counterspelling should only be applyed to the soakpool for indirect spells. You could go even as far as declaring, that techniques like absorbtion do not work against indirect spell.

That's not direct vs. indirect, but: it *is* cheaper, but it's not clear that it *should* be. As we know, stun effects are actually better in SR4, esp. if you're comparing stunbolt/manabolt only. If you fix the stun vs. physical issue elsewhere (so that stun in general isn't actually *better*), then no, you shouldn't fix it in the spells. Until that time, though…

Anyway, how big an effect do you think that Counterspelling change would have?

Since augmenting REA is pretty easy and the target gets the option to go on Full defense, adding counterspelling to the REA roll makes it very easy not to be affected at all. If counterspelling is added to the soak roll, the mage is more likely to hit with the indirect combat spell and the target has to resist base damage+net hits instead of only hits to remain unscathed.

As I said earlier I'm even thinking about going one step further and removing counterspelling entirely from indirect combat spells. So indirect combat spells are very draining but if they hit they will hurt. I think that pretty much reflects current and previous fluff.

I see. I wonder how that will fall out in play. I feel like players *are* pretty 'drain-fearing', as someone joked earlier, and that they're already happy with the effectiveness of the directs. That is, they may not actually be looking for more effectiveness in exchange for taking drain. :/ This is the same issue as for the suggestion that the elemental effects should be played up: yes, but that might not actually affect the problem.

I don't know how other people feel, but my general lean is that taking zero drain for a 'serious' spell shouldn't really happen. Drain's what limits mages, so taking at least one box of Stun doesn't seem unreasonable if you're KO-ing people. By the same token, I obviously agree that you shouldn't be taking more damage than the target. You're not 'trading damage', after all, you're just being exhausted by the casting. So these together are why I'm sympathetic to raising the low end slightly (Stunbolt) and maybe lowering the high end slightly (Fireball, or worse).

Wasn't one of the big problems for indirects precisely that people could use their REA/defense to avoid them, while directs are *direct*? (And ignore armor.)

True, but unless you want to change the fact that a ball of fire/ice/acid etc. is hurtling from the caster to the target, there is not much you can do about it. Working like a ranged attack also means that you can use called shots.

I agree, I just meant that I wondered how much Counterspelling tips the balance there. It certainly can't *hurt*. I like the idea and fluff of having Counterspelling have no affect, for exactly the reason you just said: it's a literal ball of something hurtling.

Probably not that much, but maybe without counterspelling the other benefits would be more attractive.

BTW can you use a single target indirect combat spell on an unseen target? Ranged combat allows this, spellcasting does not.

I'd have to double check, but I don't think so: the indirect spells still use the 'mystic link' to a visible target. AFAIK, you *can* cast the spell at something else and accidentally hit that target, though. That's probably not even trickery, in SR4.

I am a bit concerned with removing counterspelling completly from indirect spells.
Those elemental effects normally half the armor value and you might get up to an impressive damage code....

Agreed, but half armor is still more than directs' zero armor, and Reaction/Dodge is very likely more than Willpower or Body. So I'm just asking how much a given change affects the question, when there's already a lot stacked against the Indirects.

I know we usually talk about overcasting and multicasting when we talk about this stuff, too. Do people think those are the actual issue, and that direct/indirect don't need to be adjusted themselves if those are 'fixed'? It's annoying that there are so many totally different answers to the question, but at least it's interesting.

There's your problem, and I've tried to correct you on this multiple times: I have not played any other setting but 4th Ed, so I didn't know what the "setting's" particulars were, and in my ruleschange I provided fluff changes to alter this "issue."

Since you can't seem to wrap your mind around this I'll just leave it at that. Good day, sir.

This is actually what the rule was, before SR4A changed it.

They used to have direct elemental spells, they fit the setting and could make a come back. If you can create fire in your hand why not a range? Hell creating a crap ton of fire(AoE) at range makes more sense to me than a little ball of energy that explodes perfectly into a sphere of fire. And hey they fit the lore just fine, if they could retconn them out they can retcon them in.

For indirects I'd give them 1/2 the touch range discount. You are creating the energy at touch range no long range mystic link needed, and hurtling it at the target with magic. It relatively fits the lore and makes the indirect spells marginally more attractive, elemental effects would still be high enough drain that people would avoid them unless they were facing specialized targets that needed it(drones) but they would not suck as massively in comparison to direct spells in every other situation.

Where? When?

I don't remember ever seeing direct elemental spells.

In fact street magic explicitly states that elemental effect spells need to be physical not mana.
The drain formula breaks down to Physical (+1) (as opposed to mana), and elemental (+2)... +3 for all the single target indirects.



Yera:
My point with ignite vs flamethrower was explicitly to point out that the +3 drain does get you something very significant over the ignition. Ignite at force 5 needs *4 combat turns* to be made permenant and have any effect at all. So you cast it and at the end of the 4th combat turn it finally goes off.

I understand that direct elementals once existed, but I kinda like giving indirect *some* exclusive advantage/niche. It seems kind of crazy to take that away. Anything 'fits the setting', so that's not part of it.

Falconer, *my* point is that I'm not comparing to Ignition, which is a totally different category. I'm comparing to combat spells (specifically, direct). If you're saying that Flamethrower is actually an instant version of Ignition that happens to be usable as a combat spell, that's a different question entirely. I agree that it does have that elemental effect, but I'm sorry that's not necessarily something anyone wants in their combat spell, not when they can use a more 'precise' spell and avoid drain, ignore REA/Dodge, and ignore armor.

Incidentally, there are direct physical spells: powerbolt. The mana version is manabolt. The exclusivity of indirect elementals is more based on a (apparently) deliberate decision, not a consequence of mana/physical.