[Ooey]

Our regular Saturday night RPG group has recently started playing in the Shadowrun world.  We are enjoying it do far but I am having the hardest time getting clarification on the exact mechanic to resist drain when casting a spell.  The 5th Edition book is clear that you roll either Willpower+logic or willpower+charisma, depending on tradition, but is totally unclear as to what its rolling against. 

For example, say I have a character with a Magic 6 and Spellcasting 5.  He casts a force 8 manabolt.  With his 11 dice he gets 5 hits.  The drain, if not resisted will be stun because the number of hits is less than his magic rating.  To resist drain he rolls willpower(5) + logic (6) as a Hermetic mage.  How may hits does he need to resist the drain?  If the drain resist fails,

I've been all over the rule book, forums, and net without being able to clarify this seemingly simple question.  Any assistance would be appreciated.

[ZeConster]

Drain resist is like damage soak: each spell has a Drain Value that depends on the Force you cast it at, and each hit on the Drain Resist roll reduces the Drain damage you take by 1. With your example, a Manabolt is (F – 3) Drain, so 5, and if he were to throw, say, 4 hits on his 11 (Willpower(5) + Logic(6)) Drain Resist dice, he'd take 1 Stun Drain.
Page 278 has a section on Drain that explains how this works.

[Ooey]

Thank you ZeConster.  I've read that section on pg. 278 several times but it just didn't quite click.  Reading it again after you response, it makes sense now.

[Shadowik]

Drain resist is like damage soak: each spell has a Drain Value that depends on the Force you cast it at, and each hit on the Drain Resist roll reduces the Drain damage you take by 1. With your example, a Manabolt is (F – 3) Drain, so 5, and if he were to throw, say, 4 hits on his 11 (Willpower(5) + Logic(6)) Drain Resist dice, he'd take 1 Stun Drain.
Page 278 has a section on Drain that explains how this works.

he would take physical dmg cause force of spell is higher than his magic attribute

[Michael Chandra]

No he doesn't. That's SR4. SR5 it's the hits (after applying the limit) that determine that.

[ZeConster]

What Michael said. Whether spellcasting Drain is Physical or Stun depends not on the actual Force, but on how many hits are left after you apply the limit. This means that someone with Magic 6 can cast a spell at Force 12 and take Stun Drain if they score <=6 hits, while that same person, if they use Push the Limit when casting a spell at Force 2, can take Physical Drain if they end up with >6 hits, since Push the Limit means the limit no longer applies.
In fact, I used this trick in a Missions game: I cast Ball Lightning at Force 12, but used Flexible spellcasting to take a -6 on the spellcasting roll (in exchange for 6 extra meters of radius), reducing the chance of scoring more than 6 hits.

[Unahim]

What Michael said. Whether spellcasting Drain is Physical or Stun depends not on the actual Force, but on how many hits are left after you apply the limit. This means that someone with Magic 6 can cast a spell at Force 12 and take Stun Drain if they score <=6 hits, while that same person, if they use Push the Limit when casting a spell at Force 2, can take Physical Drain if they end up with >6 hits, since Push the Limit means the limit no longer applies.
In fact, I used this trick in a Missions game: I cast Ball Lightning at Force 12, but used Flexible spellcasting to take a -6 on the spellcasting roll (in exchange for 6 extra meters of radius), reducing the chance of scoring more than 6 hits.

Hot damn.

And people say combat spells have little use with the new grenade rules around.

[Michael Chandra]

Don't forget the Reagents trick: Cast at Force 12, use 120 nuyen in Reagents to cap at Limit 6. No Physical Drain possible.

[Xenon]

indirect spells are like firearms. indirect area spells are like grenades.
if you have a huge force but not a lot of hits you still deal a lot of damage.

most other spells depend more on net hits rather than the force they are cast at (but force act as a limit on net hits).

if you can cast an indirect combat spell at a high force but in some way limit your net hits to keep the drain stun (two examples mentioned above) then you will for sure dish out good damage.

on the other hand, you can cast most other spells (and thread resonance abilities) at a very low force and then push the limit with edge to get good effect without taking any drain at all (you only need to soak 2 points - and by that time it does not matter if the damage is stun or physical).





- then again, just because drain level is stun does not mean it is harmless... a force 12 indirect area of effect spell still have a DV11-12 you need to soak. And the spell still "only" have a damage value of Force while a grenade that you wireless detonate in the air within 1 meter of the intended target deal still deal 16P, come with no drain at all for the attacker and odds are almost guaranteed that there are at least one wall/floor/ceiling within 4 meters that will rebound even more damage....

[ZeConster]

The AP of -(Force) means the damage is close to constant, though: an 16P/-2 grenade is easier to Edge against.

[Scawire]

I want to bring something up about Drain in the new system that doesn't make sense to me.

Lets take 3 mages,
1) a weak little street kid Spell casting 3 and magic 5
2) an average starting runner mage Spell casting 5 and magic 5
3) The cutting edge mage that is a wiz at the skill of Spell casting at rating 12 and magic 5

All three cast a force 3 increase body spell
#1 the street kid with little knowledge of the arcane arts has no chance at causing physical damage to himself

#2 well this runner still has a chance to cause physical drain to himself 2 dice chance of getting too many hit.

#3 the know it all Master Spellcaster, well master your going to have to eat some physical drain you have a 9 dice chance of getting physical drain......

..... Why is it the better skilled you are the more likely you will kill yourself with physical drain, if you are more skilled at gun you don't shoot your self as much, if you are better at decking you don't get code backlash as much,  Why when you are better SKILLED at magic you are more likely to kill yourself  ......

..... I was thinking of 2 solutions that the Devs might want to consider to make more skilled in magic a good thing not a bad thing.
1) As in 2nd and 3rd edition you can take dice out of your dice pool to cast the spell and add them to your dice pool to resist Drain. This would make Master Mage with a skill of 12 a spell chucking genus, not a oh no I'm too good I'm going to kill myself.  If you want you could limit the number of dice you can take out of casting to put into drain to equal to Magic rating or to 1/2 magic rating rounded up.

2) When the new magic book comes out (YA new book I like new Core Rule books, there my fav.) add to the meta magic a limit raiser meta magic. ie I get the new meta magic my force 3 spell now has a limit of 3 + my initiate level, so a initiate of level 3 has a limit for a force 3 spell of 6, now all mages with a skill of 6 or less have no chance of taking physical drain from this spell.

Well those are my ideas sorry for the rant just don't understand why a SKILLED mage should be more likely to kill himself then an unskilled mage. As alway use any of the ideas of mine that you like.

Later and Never deal with a dragon, even those drakes PC you never know what crazy things they are up too.  Well unless you have to chose between being the dragons meal or to deal, both will most likely kill you but one takes a bit longer. 

[JackVII]

@Scawire: The Force of the spell (3 in this case) acts as a limit before factoring how many hits you achieved for spell result & drain purposes. In all three cases, if the spell is cast at Force 3, none of them have any chance of taking Physical drain (3 < 5). With the higher casting pools, the average and cutting-edge mage have a much higher chance of achieving enough successes to actually hit the limit.

[Scawire]

Ok my thought was it was hits, not net hits. So you would take all your hits ie 10 minus the force 3 giving you 7 hits after the limit was applied, so it would be Physical. If the limit of the force is still there making a force the max amount you can get that is great news to me. I was hoping my confusion with the wording was wrong, was kind of confused with "After applying the limit". 

[JackVII]

Not exactly, the spell's Force sets the limit, or maximum number of hits you can generate, for that test.

If you have Spellcasting (12) + Magic (5) and are casting a Force (3) spell, the maximum number of hits you can normally generate is capped at 3 due to the spell's force. If, for instance, you generated 5 successes from the 17 dice you roll for the test (Spellcasting + MAgic), you only keep 3 successes due to the force of the spell. You then take those 3 successes and compare it to your Magic attribute. If the number of successes is greater, you take physical drain, otherwise you take stun. In many cases, those three successes are also used to determine how effective the spell is, although this is also partially determined by the Force fo the spell.

[Michael Chandra]

It's hits, not net hits. However, it's Hits AFTER Limit. So if I cast at Force 6 with 6 Magic, score 8 hits, then 2 are lost. If you score 10 hits on a Force 3 spell, it means you only get to keep 3 hits.

UNLESS you change the limit with Reagents or use Push The Limit to ignore any limit.

Say I got a Magic 4 and a Magic 6 character both casting a spell, without bypassing the limit.

Force 4? Always Stun Drain.

Force 5? If the Magic 4 character scores 5+ hits, he keeps 5, which is more than his Magic so he takes Physical Drain.

Force 7? If the Magic 4 character scores 5+ hits, it's Physical Drain. If the Magic 6 character scores 7+ hits, it's Physical Drain.