[Reaver]

My mage character can: Control Thoughts 1 guy and make him killhimself in the IP.
The sniper in our team can: Shoot twice in an IP, with DV of 10 + net hits, on a roll of at least 16 dice or so (so average 8 net hits)

Cotnrolling that one guy doesn't seem so OP anymore when the other guy easily decks 2 people an IP...

Actually.
It goes:
2: sniper shoots, shoots again.

Depending on how juiced up your sniper is VS your Mage VS the target of your control thoughts, the kill ratio could be 8:1 sniper!

still feel control thoughts is OP in a combat situation???

Substitute "Mob Mind" for "Control Thoughts," though, and the dynamic changes to:

1) Mage Casts Force 11 Mob Mind, waits for next turn.
1) Sniper double-taps, drops 1-2 targets.
2) Mage issues command for all Mob Mind targets to kill themselves, performs other simple action.
-Combat Over

True. But area effect is still limited to <force> radius, and affects everyone (friend or foe) in the area of effect...
So the Mage (if he has a conscience, and the situation) has to be careful of his commands...

And that's why the Mage is standing next to the sniper with an optical Spotter's Scope, while the rest of the team stays out of the Mage's Line of Sight.

Of course, really, most of the time this would be used would be for situations where they have to take out a specific group quickly, from surprise. That gives the Mage time to pick his ground and carefully target his spell... or, heck, summon some Spirits of Man and order them to have all the guards kill themselves.

Or order the to goto sleep, or leave the scence and not come back, or any one of a host of other none lethal options. Again it's up to the play style, morals, and ethics of the Mage...



But this is all really off topic for a discussion about drain :p



The short of it is,  magic creates options, and options enhance a game (any game). The rules given for magic now are in fact no more powerful then they were in 3rd edition... Just the mechanics have changed. If you try to "fix" the magic system without fully looking at all sides, all you end up doing is punishing and frustrating the Mage player.

[Bastwolf]

Thanks Critias.

I'll try the optional rule next session and see how it goes. My plan is to cap the drain value increase by the force level of the spell, regardless of the total number of successes. I think this will encourage him to only use high force level spells a bit more conservatively.

This is exactly what my group does with our spell casters. It really gives the balance they need as in order to do some of the serious damage, they have to overcast. Also we use our own rule where power focus (and only power) will increase the hits cap by 1/2 force.

[Mäx]

This is exactly what my group does with our spell casters. It really gives the balance they need as in order to do some of the serious damage, they have to overcast. Also we use our own rule where power focus (and only power) will increase the hits cap by 1/2 force.

Or you can just multicast 2 or 3 slower force spells for the same effective damage and lesser drain.
For example 2 force 5 stunbolts(cos doing physical damage is pointless) for 10 damage for 2*2 drain witch is resisted to 0.
OR if you want to be sure raise the force to 7 for 14 points of damage and 2*3 Drain witch is still resisted to 0.

[Falconer]

No Max... this is exactly what I mean when I try to explain how people don't understand statistics.

There is always a chance and a nonzero  average amount of drain on a spells... especially if you're tossing something like 10 dice.   Casting two spells doubles this average drain.  Casting three triples the average drain.  The starting average drain is small but it is not zero.

Furthermore.. splitting the dice pool means that the targets are FAR more likely to resist each casting, especially if counterspelling or visibility/cover is in play.   No matter what the caster does to get around the optional rule.  The amount of drain he suffers to achieve the same effect as he did before when he got 'free damage' from hits goes up and makes the direct spells more costly the cast.  Which is the goal in the end, to make using those spells modestly more costly without overhauling the spell rules or the base drain codes.

It may not be the best way to go about it.  But it is well known and more important widespread and published.   I'd rather use it than a gazillion house rules which all screw up any kind of balance even worse.

Just to give you an idea what I'm talking about on 2 dice... there are 3 results... 0, 1 or 2 successes... with 4in9, 4in9, 1in9 chances respectively.   If there is 1 drain.   That's a 4in9 chance of 1 drain from rolling 0 successes (1 or 2 doesn't matter and cancel all).   Resulting in 0.44 average drain.  If the drain goes up to 2... it's on 2*(4in9) and 1*(4in9).  (adding one to the already cases where drain occurs and creating a new one).   So the average has increased to 1.333.    If we cast the lower drain spell twice at 0.44 drain... the average drain is now 0.88 on two castings!   I used small numbers to keep the numbers easy to understand.   But people assume 'average' successes... when average drain isn't average successes.

If the mage overcasts to increase the base damage.. he increases drain significantly because drain goes up for the same size drain pool.  Each point increase is very significant increase in average drain.   Or he casts much weaker spells with smaller dice pools which are much easier to resist at the same drain code... doubling or tripling the amount of drain he suffers merely by making more drain checks.

[Mäx]

No Max... this is exactly what I mean when I try to explain how people don't understand statistics.

Chance of not getting 2 hits on 10+ dice is quite small and gets smaller and smaller for each die above 10 the caster has.
Also a simple addition of a trauma dampener(total bargain at 40k nuyen for what it does to a combat mage) totally negates any and all avarage drain less then 1 per spell.

Also i forgot to ask in the last post, whats the point of power focus raising hit cap, it's not like anyone with a two drains cells to rub together is going to use any hits for damage anyway.

[Thrass]

No Max... this is exactly what I mean when I try to explain how people don't understand statistics.

Chance of not getting 2 hits on 10+ dice is quite small and gets smaller and smaller for each die above 10 the caster has.
Also a simple addition of a trauma dampener(total bargain at 40k nuyen for what it does to a combat mage) totally negates any and all avarage drain less then 1 per spell.

Also i forgot to ask in the last post, whats the point of power focus raising hit cap, it's not like anyone with a two drains cells to rub together is going to use any hits for damage anyway.

Nope an average drain of 1 can still end up being bigger then 1.... for example... 3 drain with a dicepool of 20 for resistance is an average drain of below 1 but can still end up being 3.

[JustADude]

No Max... this is exactly what I mean when I try to explain how people don't understand statistics.

Chance of not getting 2 hits on 10+ dice is quite small and gets smaller and smaller for each die above 10 the caster has.
Also a simple addition of a trauma dampener(total bargain at 40k nuyen for what it does to a combat mage) totally negates any and all avarage drain less then 1 per spell.

Also i forgot to ask in the last post, whats the point of power focus raising hit cap, it's not like anyone with a two drains cells to rub together is going to use any hits for damage anyway.

Nope an average drain of 1 can still end up being bigger then 1.... for example... 3 drain with a dicepool of 20 for resistance is an average drain of below 1 but can still end up being 3.

Or even more, if they Critical Glitch.

[Mirikon]

Indeed. Statistically speaking, the more rolls the player makes, the more likely it is that he will get boned by the dice gods.

[Falconer]

Max:
Again, many of us only apply a trama damper to damage suffered.   Not raw damage taken.  RAW is grey on this point and it can be argued either way.

IE: you get hit for 6 points of damage... you roll your soak down to 1.   You take one... the trauma damper doesn't kick in since the damage you're actually taking is less than 2 when you're actually marking damage boxes off.  There's also some who only apply a trauma damper to physical... others who do both physical and stun.  The wording isn't clear on when or exactly what types of damage it works on.  (there's a fluff sentence... followed by a crunch sentence which describes exactly how it works for rules and the crunch sentence says (all) damage... while the fluff leans towards physical only).

I've found the more experts types games I've played in tend to do it after soaked damage... and apply it when damage is TAKEN (checking off boxes on your sheet).   The more pink mohawk games do it before rolling the dice for a far more run and gun game.  Since the rules never say which is correct, both are reasonable readings and dependent on the table.



Just so you know.. here's an easy formula i worked up to figure out odds in a hurry.   COMBIN(NumDice, NumSuccess)*(2^(NumDice-NumSuccess)).   Will tell you exactly how many cases out of 3^(NumDice) possibilities result in exactly that number of successes.  You can double check that... the riemann sum from 0 to NumDice of that formula exactly equals 3^(numdice) for any number of dice you choose so it always produces 100% of the possible results broken down by successes.

So using your 10 dice drain... and 2 drain result (don't forget to increase drain by +1 per spell after the first for multicasting).
With 2 drain.   You have 1024 cases of 2 drain (no successes),  You have 5120 cases cases of 1 drain (1 success)... and we don't care about 2 or more as all of them result in no drain.   Out of 59049 possible results.    So you have ~0.2 drain per casting... with a good size drain pool.   Since you're casting it twice each time.  The average is times 2... goes up to ~0.4 drain per casting... or a little under 50% odds each time you cast that you take a point of drain!  (hardly insignificant).

If you overcast at force 11 right away... 4 drain.    1024 cases of 4 drain, 5120 cases of 3 drain, (note how the existing cases all had their drain go up significantly), 11520 cases of 2 drain, and 15360 cases of 1 drain.  Out of 59049 possibilities.    Average:  ~0.98 drain per casting.   So each time you do that you probably take 1 drain.

If you don't engage the optional rule and you assume force 7 with say 3 net hits for free damage...  the average drain per casting is again drain 2... so again ~0.2 drain per casting.  But instead of needing two castings (with less dice per casting... increasing the odds of resisting or glitching).   You only need one... so the drain is less than half what multicasting is on average.  (if you account for higher failure rate on lower force, lower dice pool split castings).

[Mäx]

Max:
Again, many of us only apply a trama damper to damage suffered.   Not raw damage taken.  RAW is grey on this point and it can be argued either way.

IE: you get hit for 6 points of damage... you roll your soak down to 1.   You take one... the trauma damper doesn't kick in since the damage you're actually taking is less than 2 when you're actually marking damage boxes off.  There's also some who only apply a trauma damper to physical... others who do both physical and stun.  The wording isn't clear on when or exactly what types of damage it works on.  (there's a fluff sentence... followed by a crunch sentence which describes exactly how it works for rules and the crunch sentence says (all) damage... while the fluff leans towards physical only).

Your confusing trauma dampener with platelet factories, witch indeed only work when you suffer at least 2 points of physical damage.
Trauma dampener on the other hand shifts one point of suffered physical damage to stun or reduces suffered stun damage by one and work even if you only suffered 1 point of damage.

[Unahim]

What is this trauma dampener thee speakest of? Is it Ware? I've only played Awakaned characters to far (being only up to character #2) so I've not really read any Ware yet.

[Thrass]

it is ware... yes

[JustADude]

What is this trauma dampener thee speakest of? Is it Ware? I've only played Awakaned characters to far (being only up to character #2) so I've not really read any Ware yet.

Yep, it's Bioware... and you really should give that stuff a read-through. There are a few bits and bobs that are worth the Magic Loss for an Awakened type.

It may not fit your character concept, and that's cool, but it's generally the "optimal" move from a strictly mechanical (pun not intended) standpoint.

[Falconer]

It's incompatible with the pain editor... and i think the pain editor is the best single piece of ware for a mage myself.

Here let me flick a switch... ignore penalties from my stun track.   Get +1 willpower to better resist drain and offensive magic tossed in my direction.   Okay -1 intution is kinda meh... but still pretty good deal.

Quite frankly... given all the issues with stun... i'd rather keep the damage physical so it can be 'heal'ed from non-drain sources.   And the last thing i want is shifting more damage than already is on the stun track.

[Unahim]

What is this trauma dampener thee speakest of? Is it Ware? I've only played Awakaned characters to far (being only up to character #2) so I've not really read any Ware yet.

Yep, it's Bioware... and you really should give that stuff a read-through. There are a few bits and bobs that are worth the Magic Loss for an Awakened type.

It may not fit your character concept, and that's cool, but it's generally the "optimal" move from a strictly mechanical (pun not intended) standpoint.

For an adept I would go for it all the way. For my mages so far spending all my money on high-end power foci and keeping my 5 magic has seemed like a good way to go.

Next mage I'd make would probably be a dwarf with high willpower, logic boosting cyber, possibly some kind of inbuilt radar thing (cast direct spells past walls like a boss) and the trauma damper.

My GM is a reasonable fellow, so I'm sure I can cut a deal with him on those issues, Falconer. I don't get how stun damage ins't healable, anyway. Bulelts impact me but my armour turns it into stun damage... how do you interprete that? For me, the idea has always been that the bullets just bruised and battered you, rather than puncture you. Why can't I Heal bruises, exactly?

And with a trauma Damper I make the injury less severe, so now it can be healed less easily than if I was bleeding to death? What?