[kongkim]

Hi all. And sorry for my bad english first of

We are groupe of 6 that has just startet on SR. 4th. and there is alot of rules to learn and things to know.

Right now its my first chr. and i made a elf mage. And as we we have played some times now i really feel that spells are very bad and in no way compares to using guns in combat?
Maybe i missed something or we doing something wrong.

With guns you roll atack and net hits give extra damage.

With spell like touch spells. you need to roll first a unarmed +agi roll, then a spell + force roll. and then a Drain value roll. that gets even hard for each net hit +1 you make..
So guns 1 roll vs. spells 3 rolls were you even can damage your self? How do that ever match up?

And if we go again from the damage spell and i try to cast Armor spell that have 5DV for me. and i roll some net hits i easy get 7-8-9 in DV and i have a resist of 9?
So i can almost total stun my self by only casting this single spell in i don't roll very well?

Hope some people can make some sense to me about it

kongkim.
 

[ZeConster]

Drain Value solely depends on the spell and the Force you cast at (though the amount of hits you get, after applying the limit, determines whether it's Physical or Stun) - net hits do not factor into the equation.
EDIT: My bad, missed the part where this is 4th edition.

[Glyph]

The anniversary edition of SR4 does have a very stupid optional rule that net hits applied to damage also raise the Drain.  This only applies to direct combat spells, though.  It does not apply to other spells, such as armor.

[emsquared]

Yea, sounds like you're doing something wrong with your spellcasting Drain. When casting a spell, you as the caster set the Force and therefore the Drain, as the Force also determines your Drain (usually Force/2 + or - something), your net hits on your skill test do not add to the Drain you need to resist. Touch spells are usually very low Drain because touch spells are the worst/weakest version of any spell there is (exactly because they require that extra roll to successfully touch). That said, the most important thing you should build your caster around is managing Drain, more important than pushing your Spellcasting pool to the roof.

To address your question though, first off you can't compare shooting a gun to touch spells. It's like asking, what's better to eat; a peeled banana, or a banana with the peel on? Of course you want to eat the peeled banana. Compare shooting to bolt or area blast spells.

Following that, in general, your opposition are going to have (WAY) fewer dice to resist spells (unless you're casting an Indirect Combat Spell and/or they have a Mage of their own around who can Counterspell). If you're shot at, every time you get a Defense Roll (Reaction) as well as a Soak Roll (Body+Armor), for Direct Combat and Manipulation and Illusion Spells you don't even receive a "Defense" roll, only a "Soak", which in the case of spells is called your Resist Roll, and is usually ONLY your Willpower or Body - no Armor, no Dodging, just one Attribute vs. Attribute+Skill+Focus+Mentor Spirit... so yea, Spells pair up just fine (incredibly better really).

Which brings me to my final point, touch/bolt/ball spells are some of the poorest choices of things to do out of all the things you can do with your magic as a spellcaster. Why replicate a gun (pew pew), when you could take over an enemies body (negating their actions) and even use their gun to shoot their friends (essentially, gaining you another action)? This is to say nothing of Summoning. If you're just casting lightening bolts and stun-balls and doing flaming grasps, you're acting like an amateur caster, and in most cases probably doing it (your role) wrong.

[Top Dog]

Which brings me to my final point, touch/bolt/ball spells are some of the poorest choices of things to do out of all the things you can do with your magic as a spellcaster. Why replicate a gun (pew pew), when you could take over an enemies body (negating their actions) and even use their gun to shoot their friends (essentially, gaining you another action)? This is to say nothing of Summoning. If you're just casting lightening bolts and stun-balls and doing flaming grasps, you're acting like an amateur caster, and in most cases probably doing it (your role) wrong.

Mostly this, although a well-timed magical attack is certainly very useful, so you should still have it in your arsenal.

Even with combat spells, you have options. The typical, Force 6-ish indirect combat spell is indeed rather weak - about a pistol's worth of damage (albeit with relatively high AP) and a manageable drain. But mages have the option to go nuclear as well - without any significant investment you can suddenly throw around huge balls of DV12/AP-12. That comes at a cost, but having the option is a good thing. And that versatility shines in other fields as well - you can use the same dice pool for defensive spells, or information gathering, or battlefield control...

[Ryo]

This is 4th edition, so its all about the Direct combat spells if you want to out shoot your gun friends.

An Ares Predator IV does 5P + net hits. The enemy dodges with Reaction, and then soaks the damage with Body + Ballistic armor - AP.

Your Force 5 Manabolt does 5P + net hits. The enemy resists with Body. He doesn't get to soak damage.

You then resist 2S + net hits Drain, since Direct combat spells add net hits to Drain. Still, you should be built to handle that, with a minimum of 11 dice to soak drain. Your allies aren't risking hurting themselves, but they aren't cooking the enemy from the inside either. You will easily out-damage any gun your allies have. You're equally unlikely to ever miss, and your range is LOS, so as long as you can see them, you can cook them.

And in 4th edition, First Aid could heal drain, so you can eliminate the stun damage if you do flub your roll.

[kongkim]

Hmm i just think there is someting very wrong with this system 
Even with the ability to boost spells and target has lower resist i still can't see way ever use combat spell instead of a gun.
As you still have a huge chance to give your selv stun damage. and casting a spell is a complex action were shooting a gun is a simple active so you can shoot two time?

[Tziktzal]

edit: sorry, missed the 4th ed part. Everything below is for 5th. But unless I am mistaken, spellcasting was even stronger in 4th.

You may only take one attack action during your turn. Also you should consider that guns can accumulate recoil, which might be a problem for your mage.

I think the spells you should compare to guns are indirect combat spells (with a single target). They work pretty much like guns, you just roll your spellcasting instead of the shoot weapon test. The target gets to defend just like against a gun and if you hit, it gets to resist the damage, just like with guns. If you cast them at a "normal" force, say 6, you face little risk of Drain Damage (normally resisting 3 points of stun drain should easy for your mage). This will be like shooting a gun with 6 DV and AP-6 (and with an additional elemental effect). Just like with a gun, you get to add the net hits. Normal spellcasting is a complex action, but you can go reckless and do this in simple action, taking a bit more drain but allowing you to use your other simple action for something else, like another spell (just not one that attacks anyone).

There are more types of spells however. Indirect Combat Area spells are somewhat similar to grenades, they do comparable damage and are just as hard to defend against.

Direct Combat Spells are different. They will pretty much always hit, as they are resisted with a single attribute. Also, there is no separate damage resistance test, which is great thing, as they ignore Armor(and Body, in some cases). Still they will usually do less damage than a gun, so it might take 3 or more hits to take someone down at normal values i guess. These might be good to kill off the guy that has been hit by a heavier gun (or spells) and is barely alive. You will also want to use these against people that are otherwise very hard to hit or heavily armored.

Touch Combat Spells are again another story. First you got to make sure how they are rolled, i think there is some ambiguity in the book. Still, most mages will not want to go into close combat, just to do a little more potential damage. Because essentially with a Touch spell you trade your range for a little less Drain, allowing you to go to higher forces. I think these spells are only usefull for very specialized characters (if at all).

[Lucean]

Why worry about taking damage yourself, if you can literally one- or two-shot enemies?
If the opposition is gone, it rarely matters how much damage you took yourself.

And you can also cast multiple instances of the same spell with a single complex action.
Since drain values are rounded down, you always should try to use an uneven force value, say 5 to use with Stunbolt, which results in a final drainvalue of 1. So now you do a multi-cast with two Force 5 Stunbolts, which increases the drain to 2 for each spell, which is still easy to soak on average. But now you take out the average mook in one pass.
To aid you in this you should look out for some things:
- specialising in combat spells
- taking a mentor spirit for combat spells
- get a power focus or a spellcasting focus (combat spells)
Since all those modifiers are added after you split the dicepool you seriously improve your chances to succeed.

To be on the safe side with the opposition, make them Force 6, which increases the drain by one, but still not a threat to a serious spellslinger.

Do this in your next fights and you'll see why Stunbolt is considered overpowered in SR4 and your complaint just results from a lack of system mastery.

[Top Dog]

This is 4th edition, so its all about the Direct combat spells if you want to out shoot your gun friends.

An Ares Predator IV does 5P + net hits. The enemy dodges with Reaction, and then soaks the damage with Body + Ballistic armor - AP.

Your Force 5 Manabolt does 5P + net hits. The enemy resists with Body. He doesn't get to soak damage.

You then resist 2S + net hits Drain, since Direct combat spells add net hits to Drain. Still, you should be built to handle that, with a minimum of 11 dice to soak drain. Your allies aren't risking hurting themselves, but they aren't cooking the enemy from the inside either. You will easily out-damage any gun your allies have. You're equally unlikely to ever miss, and your range is LOS, so as long as you can see them, you can cook them.

And in 4th edition, First Aid could heal drain, so you can eliminate the stun damage if you do flub your roll.

Oops, missed the 4E part. Still, my story remains mostly the same, except direct combat spells are a much more powerful option then.

[kongkim]

You make it sound so good
Its just not how i feel when playing haha.

I have a little out of the box combat mage with an smg gun something something.

I have 5 force/magic
12 dice to cast my spells.
9 dice to resist DV
13 dice to shoot my gun. and have a vent on it that lower the recoil by 3.

So lets say i cast a powerbolt at my standard force 5. it has 3 DV if i remember right.
I rolled with 5 net hits. that give me a DV of 8... i fails the resist and got stun and killed?
Never ever had a chance to fight or do anything?

That even make what to shoot my gun next time...

Im not sure here maybe we got it wrong.
But you can do a complet action or 2 simple in your turn right?
Shooting a gun is a simple? So that allows you to shoot to times right? Making guns even better?

[Lucean]

You don't have to use the net hits to increase the damage!
Sure, it might finish the opponent, but with net hits you're trading 1 drain value for 1 damage against the opponent. Whereas with just Force 5 you should be able to do 5 damage and take zero damage yourself.

Since Powerbolt is a physical spell I recommend to take either Manabolt or Stunbolt (if you feel cheesy as complementary spells, since manaspells are better against trolls and orks (soaked with WIL and not BOD) and can be used on astral entities.

[Top Dog]

Let's take your advantage of Powerbolt, force 5, and assume people roll average.

You cast Powerbolt, with 12 dice. Your average is 4 hits, and the average to resist with, say, 4 defense dice, for 1 hit. That's 3 net hits.

Those net hits apply only to the damage you deal to the other guy. Not to your drain! So you do 5 base damage (because force 5) + 3 net hits, for 8 damage. Unlike guns, this isn't further soaked by armor.

Then comes the drain resist. The drain value for powerbolt is (F/2)+1, so 5/2+1. Drain value is rounded down in SR4, so 3 drain. Drain only depends on the force of the spell. Since you have 9 drain resist dice, you roll 3 on average, so on average you take no drain (though, of course, you'll roll badly sometimes).

Net result is that the enemy takes an average of 8 damage, while you occasionally take 1 or 2 stun damage if you roll badly.

I think the confusion here comes from the abbreviation DV, which stands both for Damage Value and Drain Value. The Combat Spells section mentions that net hits increase the DV, but that refers only to Damage Value, not drain value (it's listed under the Damage Value subheader, after all).

---

Now, guns will have similar results to this - you'll get on average about the same net hits, DV will be higher but guns get an armor roll on top of that. And yes, guns have the advantage of shooting twice. But you have the advantage of options - you can choose to overcast at force 10, greatly increasing the damage you take but almost guaranteeing the opponents immediate demise. And you have other spells available. Plus, your listed dicepools are lowish - not terrible for a starting character, but certainly something you'll increase later on. As stated, getting your Drain Resist up (get the Centering metamagic!) will help a lot, since you'll be able to use higher force spells with less danger to yourself.

[Lucean]

The SR4A CRB p. 204 disagrees with you, Top Dog:

Affecting the target’s being on this fundamental level with raw mana requires more focus and more power than producing basic effects; as a result every net hit used to increase the damage value of a Direct Combat spell also increases the Drain DV of the spell by +1.

[ZeConster]

I think that's an older version, Lucean. Like Glyph said, it was later changed to an optional rule:

As an optional rule, every net hit applied also increases the Drain DV of the spell by +1. For area effect spells, the highest net hits used applies to the Drain DV.