[Chris D]

I have a beginning spellcasting shadowrunner planning his combat spells. Increase reflexes is going into his sustaining focus. He does not have a 2nd sustaining focus yet, and is mulling the advantages of the Armor and Improved Invisibility spells, with an eye to casting neither, either, or both at the start of most combats. He will often be wearing an armor jacket and helmet to give him a base 9/8 armor.

My gut reaction is that in a surprise situation, it would never be worth taking my first three actions to cast all three spells. Just cast increase reaction in turn one, and in turn 2 start blasting away. Otherwise combat will be over before I even start.

So assuming I have all the time in the world to prepare for combat, but also recognizing that I will be wanting to do other things other than sustain spells: I will want to Perceive, and Stealth, and use knowledge, and cast utility spells like levitate or invisibility on other people, so I am really thinking that a -4 for the entire run is a bad idea. And a -2 for the entire run might possibly be as well.

Assuming I cast Armor at force 5, I can hope for 4 or 5 successes to raise my armor as high as 14/13. That would be excellent. I then need to withstand 5 drain, which means that slightly more than half the time I will suffer one or more points of stun. This seems worthwhile. I will be at -2 dice for all other actions. I am not sure this is worthwhile.

Assuming I cast Improved Invisibility at force 5, I can hope for 4 or 5 successes. I will need to withstand 3 drain which should be no problem. My understanding is that so long as I get at least 4 successes most cameras will not be able to see me. Other sensors will, but most guns use cameras for final targeting. Drone cameras might or might not be able to see me depending on whether the GM rules I need to overcome the object resistance of the whole drone (OR 6) or just its cameras (OR 4). Security guards and the like need to take resistance tests of Int + Perception (I think first one free, additional take simple actions - or at least that is how it is in other games). The assumption is that most gear and most people will be unable to see me, so few of them will shoot at me, and of the ones that do, many will be suffering a -6 due to blind fire. Of course I suffer a -2 to all my attacks for this benefit.

I am thinking that having both spells up is overkill. I probably don’t need them to be at -6 to hit me, and my armor to be at +5. One or the other should hopefully be sufficient to keep my skin whole, but I don’t know which is best.

So my questions are: Which one? Neither? Both?

My thinking is that Improved Invisibility is very useful in the sneaking part of the shadowrun, and is still very useful in the combat part, so just rely on it full time.

Thoughts?

[Lucean]

There are no general answers, as each situation could be different enough to call for different solutions.

In general you should not run around without Increase Reflexes on a run, where you don't need to be stealthy. But even the -2 from sustaining a second spell should not be enough to keep you from using both IR and Improved Invisibility at the same time.
Since Armor is a quite obvious spell, I would rather use Combat Sense.

[Top Dog]

Depending on how your GM rules it, Improved Invisibility and Armor at the same time probably won't help you too much, since the Armor spell itself glows (exactly what that means is not really that clear, but chances are it doesn't help too much with the whole invisibility part. A GM could go from the glow becoming invisible to the glow completely disabling the invisibility spell, or anything in between. That's something to discuss with your GM first at any rate.

Armor has the advantage of adding on to your existing protection, so it works well in pretty much all combat situations, and against a wide array of attacks. So that's a plus. On the other hand, you glow, and with "Geek the mage first" being all the rage these days, that probably isn't a good thing (you could always armor your tank and give him some fake foci, I guess). It's rather costly in Drain though. Altogether, I don't think this spell is much worth it, mainly because of the huge target it paints on you.

Improved Invisibility, on the other hand, does mostly the opposite. It's an extra layer of security, but doesn't add to your normal one - while getting 2 hits on Armor is kind of lame, but still useful, a 2-hit invisibility is practically useless as, once it's pierced, it has no effect (and it doesn't stack with non-magical concealment). It's also useless against many magical threats, as astrally perceiving is a total defense against it. Still, a 5- or so hit Invisibility is quite effective against almost all mundane targets - and you'll face those the most - with relatively low drain. And on top of that, unlike Armor it has a lot of out-of-combat utility (although Armor could be used to see in the dark, I guess?). So I'd go with II anytime.

Note: when I played a mage in SR4 I had both of them, and after a few runs I practically never cast Armor. The lack of subtlety just isn't worth it. In SR5 I didn't take the spell for that reason (it's mostly the same) and while there's been situations where I'd wanted an armor buff, I've yet to run in a situation where I missed the actual Armor spell itself.

[Michael Chandra]

Especially since Combat Sense and Deflection tend to serve the same damage reduction as Armor, except for against AoE.

[Chris D]

Thanks for your replies.
I got to thinking about your replies, and realized that just carrying a ballistic shield around gives a better bonus than the armor spell, and only costs -1 dice instead of the -2 that sustaining the spell would cost. So I guess the armor spell is a very bad choice unless you happen to have an extra manipulation sustaining focus empty.
It sounds like Improved Invisibility and/or combat sense could make sense.

 Thanks

[Lucean]

Just remember that such a shield is really unwieldy and could draw unwanted attention really fast.

[Top Dog]

Just remember that such a shield is really unwieldy and could draw unwanted attention really fast.

Not as fast as the Armor spell, though. But yes, you probably shouldn't walk around downtown (with either, really).

Mind you, Shields give -1 to, from memory, agi and reaction per two point over str, and there's generally better ways to fill up that "bonus armor allowance", like helmets and securetec addons, that are more granular and don't bog you down as much. But yes, even then it's probably better then the Armor spell in most situations, if you can handle it.

[Michael Chandra]

Removed some SR5 notes from my reply. Ballisic Shields indeed are a bit of an encumbrance problem, you're better off gaming the system with Arsenal's fancy clothes and PPP Securetech.

[Top Dog]

Removed some SR5 notes from my reply. Ballisic Shields indeed are a bit of an encumbrance problem, you're better off gaming the system with Arsenal's fancy clothes and PPP Securetech.

Right, SR4. It's points over... Body*3 that count then? Something like that. But yes, point is that you're usually better off with non-shields.

[Lucean]

Standard would be BOD*2, you're thinking of the optional rule of custom fitting armor from Arsenal.

[Michael Chandra]

Probably caused by forgetting SR5 raised armor ratings, so Body 4 is not AJ12 but AJ8.

[Sternenwind]

Why not Increase [Body]?
It is not so obvious as armor. And allow you to wear better armor, without encumbrance.