[Wraith235]

   
Rule 2: Foci and Drain
     "All magicians use Willpower plus another mental attribute appropriate to their tradition to resist drain. For example, most hermetic mages use Willpower + Logic to resist all Drain while shamans use Willpower + Charisma." (pg. 178 Shadowrun 4th Ed. 10th Anniversary)
     "...A power focus adds its Force to all tests in which the magician's Magic is included. A single power focus can increase a magician's ability to cast spells, call on and control spirits, and bypass astral barriers."
     I've seen a lot of players, on forums and in person, use power foci for drain tests. This is not the intent of the author's of this book. The Magic attribute does not affect Drain at all. it affects all the other things mentioned, casting spells, summoning and controling spirits, and bypassing astral barriers, but it has nothing to do with drain. If I was a GM, I would say that you cannot use dice awarded from the binding of a power foci to resist Drain. If a GM thinks that is okay, then cool, just know that it would be a house rule, not a Shadowrun rule.

Id like to take a bit here and elaborate on the confusion

your quote is 100% Correct .... and I believe that a lot of the confusion comes from a Printing in SR4 (Keep in mind that a lot of players out there dont do a point to point reread of the rules marking changes)

this is from the SR4 book page 191

    Spellcasting foci   add their Force to a magician’s Spellcasting and Ritual Spellcasting dice pools. These dice may   be used to   cast a spell   more   efectively or withheld to help the   
magician with Drain.

also there was an implication (Cant find it ATM) that a power foci could duplicate all other foci uses except a few ... Weapon / sustaining / counterspelling (metamagic foci need not apply)

[Nomad Zophiel]

Interesting, i wonder what SR forums your reading, as neither of these basic mistakes is a reason why mages are OP.
It has much more to do with the fact that unless i'm a mage, my mage companion has a LOS on me or i have one of the 2 anti magic surge qualities, a half way desand combat mage can knock me out with little effort and there's absolutely nothing i can do about it, except try to kill him first.

OK, am I missing something or is your definition of "half way decent" way different from mine. I know I can be pretty ignorant on magic, so if I'm missing something here, let me know. A non-initiate Mage firing off a stunbolt is probably using Force 5 or 6. Let's say he has 12 dice for an average of 4 hits and a maximum of 6. That's resisted by Body and even an average person is going to knock one off that total. Its going to take more than one of those to knock anyone out. Admittedly, most mages can resist this drain all day long.

If the same character overcasts for Force 12, blows an Edge (based on having 5 Edge), he's going to have around 10 hits to be resisted, 12 maximum. This will eat a non-specialists' Stun track pretty quick, possibly even being a one shot KO. The drain's going to be doing a point or two of physical to him per shot.

Initiation and/or foci can boost that somewhat but at a cost of Karma and nuyen both. Initiation (and matching magic increase) are actually a very Karma intensive way to get another 1/3 hit per level. Up to Force 9 drain resistance on the low end isn't too big of a deal. On the overcasting end, every Force over 12 is another physical hit to worry about.

Take as given that a Mage has four IPs due to spells. In a toe to toe standoff with a Street Sam with all else being equal, the Mage goes second (either they both spend edge or both don't). He can't go on Full Defense because he wants to fire those stunbolts. Sammy fires a short bust of stick'n'shocks for 8S+1 per hit. Unless the Mage has 16 points of armor, he just took a shot with more power/hit than he can fire back, even with overcasting. Sure it costs a few bucks on ammo but it can do a one shot takedown at a higher dice pool at no Karma cost at all. Even if you prefer gel rounds instead of stick'n'shock they work out to be roughly equal to a Knockout bolt (ie armor and base damage roughly cancel).

[Wraith235]

Interesting, i wonder what SR forums your reading, as neither of these basic mistakes is a reason why mages are OP.
It has much more to do with the fact that unless i'm a mage, my mage companion has a LOS on me or i have one of the 2 anti magic surge qualities, a half way desand combat mage can knock me out with little effort and there's absolutely nothing i can do about it, except try to kill him first.

OK, am I missing something or is your definition of "half way decent" way different from mine. I know I can be pretty ignorant on magic, so if I'm missing something here, let me know. A non-initiate Mage firing off a stunbolt is probably using Force 5 or 6. Let's say he has 12 dice for an average of 4 hits and a maximum of 6. That's resisted by Body and even an average person is going to knock one off that total. Its going to take more than one of those to knock anyone out. Admittedly, most mages can resist this drain all day long.

If the same character overcasts for Force 12, blows an Edge (based on having 5 Edge), he's going to have around 10 hits to be resisted, 12 maximum. This will eat a non-specialists' Stun track pretty quick, possibly even being a one shot KO. The drain's going to be doing a point or two of physical to him per shot.

Initiation and/or foci can boost that somewhat but at a cost of Karma and nuyen both. Initiation (and matching magic increase) are actually a very Karma intensive way to get another 1/3 hit per level. Up to Force 9 drain resistance on the low end isn't too big of a deal. On the overcasting end, every Force over 12 is another physical hit to worry about.

Take as given that a Mage has four IPs due to spells. In a toe to toe standoff with a Street Sam with all else being equal, the Mage goes second (either they both spend edge or both don't). He can't go on Full Defense because he wants to fire those stunbolts. Sammy fires a short bust of stick'n'shocks for 8S+1 per hit. Unless the Mage has 16 points of armor, he just took a shot with more power/hit than he can fire back, even with overcasting. Sure it costs a few bucks on ammo but it can do a one shot takedown at a higher dice pool at no Karma cost at all. Even if you prefer gel rounds instead of stick'n'shock they work out to be roughly equal to a Knockout bolt (ie armor and base damage roughly cancel).

ok ... 1st off Stunbolt is resisted with willpower not body

4 hits on a force 6 makes that 10 damage(stun) Roll willpower .... if you dont have a 3/4 willpower 1 hit leaves you with 1 box stun left(2 will is a KO)
with drain being 6 (stun)

on your overcast example force 12 with 10 hits is 22 damage (stun)
with drain of 15 (physical)

stick'n'Shocks are resisted with 1/2 impact

also there are 2 rolls vs. being shot ..... theres the base reaction roll (to reduce the hits of the shot) then theres the armor roll vs. only 1 from a spell(Will + counterspelling if applicable)

[Nomad Zophiel]

So yes I was. Thank you.  This is a good way to learn. I'm reading up as I go.

All damage numbers below are prior to resistance rolls.

So for the Knockout bolt, assuming 12 dice to resist drain you're looking at doing 10 stun and taking 2 or doing 22 stun and taking 11 physical. If a mage wants to knock out a bruiser badly enough that he has to call DocWagon to save himself, I'm OK with that. Either way its a much smaller clip than our hypothetical stick'n'shock.

Now, to break down the stick'n'shock.
Base damage 6S+2 for burst-2 for a maximum human Reaction-2 for a maximum unencumbered armored human with no implants (ie Impact 12)=4S+hits on attack roll. The gunner can fire two bursts per IP. With the same stat+skill of 12 as the Mage, average damage is going to be 16S total. Then there's that obnoxious electrical attack thing. There's also a good chance of a smartlink and/or cyberwear adding more hits to that. Chances are a Mage does not have implant armor. Yes, they could be sustaining any number of useful things but those start to cut into those bolts.

Obviously there are about a million factors that make one side or the other better in a given circumstance. Against their own type (mage vs mage, street sam vs street sam) each of these attacks does less damage than shown here. For these two examples, though, it becomes another example of "who goes first, wins". Odds are good that's the sammie.

[Mäx]

Interesting, i wonder what SR forums your reading, as neither of these basic mistakes is a reason why mages are OP.
It has much more to do with the fact that unless i'm a mage, my mage companion has a LOS on me or i have one of the 2 anti magic surge qualities, a half way desand combat mage can knock me out with little effort and there's absolutely nothing i can do about it, except try to kill him first.

OK, am I missing something or is your definition of "half way decent" way different from mine. I know I can be pretty ignorant on magic, so if I'm missing something here, let me know.

Let me elobrate my point a little
Defender, lets say Willpower 4 (10 stun damage boxes)

Attacker Combat mage with:
spellcasting(combat) 3(+2)
magic 4
mentor that gives bonus to combat spells
combat spellcasting focus 2
He multicasts 2 force 5 stunbolts with 4 + 3 = 7/2 = 4/3 + 2(spec) + 2(mentor) +2(focus) = 10/9 dice that's 3 successes for both spells mening 8S damage per spell,defence roll drops 1DV of from both leaving 14 points of stun damage, more then enough to knock Defender out and he suffers 2 points of drain twice, which is reduced to zero with a drain resistance pool of 6(both stats at 3).

[The_Gun_Nut]

The entire dice pool is halved for multicasting, not just the base Magic + Spellcasting (it says the dice pool, which includes bonuses from foci and mentors and specialization).  So it would be 7/6 instead of 10/9.  The drain is also increased by 1 on each spell for a total of 3 drain each.  This makes the (average) totals to be 2 hits for the attack rolls with 1 resist for a damage of 6S each.  For a total of 12 stun.  Still nasty, but a decent roll for the defender can potentially negate the hits and thus ignore the spell.  Not likely, granted, but it is something to consider.

The drain on the mage (again, average rolls) is not completely negated.  He suffers 1 stun for each spell for a total of 2 stun.  Not life threatening, but each little bit adds up.  And if the defender got lucky, he may not be down for the count yet.

It is definately in the mage's favor, but it is not a sure thing.  Consider risk vs. reward here.

[Mäx]

The entire dice pool is halved for multicasting, not just the base Magic + Spellcasting (it says the dice pool, which includes bonuses from foci and mentors and specialization).  So it would be 7/6 instead of 10/9.  The drain is also increased by 1 on each spell for a total of 3 drain each.  This makes the (average) totals to be 2 hits for the attack rolls with 1 resist for a damage of 6S each.  For a total of 12 stun.  Still nasty, but a decent roll for the defender can potentially negate the hits and thus ignore the spell.  Not likely, granted, but it is something to consider.

Yeah thats what the FAQ likes to tell you, but that's not how the dicepool splitting works by the rules, the dice pool modifiers are added in after the split(not that it even matters in this case)
Also the 2 drain allready included the +1 from casting 2 spells, force 5 stunbolt has only 1 drain.

[Nomad Zophiel]

I still don't see it being in the mage's favor. Even with two hits per shot (Body 6) to resist the stick'n'shocks, you're looking at identical damage, 12 S. Most mages aren't going to have 12 points of Impact armor, Body 6 and Reaction 6. Increase the damage by 2 for every 3 points that BOD+REA is less than 12 and by 1 for every 3 points armor is less than 12.

We could go back and forth on who's better with different loadouts, weapons, firing two guns at once vs double casting etc. The fact that we are able to, though, means that both sides are close to balanced. If one or the other was far and away superior, it would have raised its head by now.

[The_Gun_Nut]

The entire dice pool is halved for multicasting, not just the base Magic + Spellcasting (it says the dice pool, which includes bonuses from foci and mentors and specialization).  So it would be 7/6 instead of 10/9.  The drain is also increased by 1 on each spell for a total of 3 drain each.  This makes the (average) totals to be 2 hits for the attack rolls with 1 resist for a damage of 6S each.  For a total of 12 stun.  Still nasty, but a decent roll for the defender can potentially negate the hits and thus ignore the spell.  Not likely, granted, but it is something to consider.

Yeah thats what the FAQ likes to tell you, but that's not how the dicepool splitting works by the rules, the dice pool modifiers are added in after the split(not that it even matters in this case)
Also the 2 drain allready included the +1 from casting 2 spells, force 5 stunbolt has only 1 drain.

I pulled that out of the rulebook, not the FAQ.

Remembered the bit about the Stunbolt after I went to work, later.

[Mäx]

The following is from ranged combat section on the subject of firing multiple weapons

Characters can use two pistol- or SMG-class weapons, one in each
hand, firing both with a single Simple Action. Doing so, however, requires
that the character split his dice pool between the attacks. If two
separate skills are being used (Pistols and Automatics), use the smallest
dice pool. Split the pool before applying modifiers

Relevant part italiced courtesy of the writers.
I see no reason to treat the other dicepool splitting attacks differently.

Also for spellcasting only step 4 tells you to add the modifiers into the casting pool, the pool is split in step 3.

Nomadzophiel: against S&S i can add noncondactivyty rating 6 to my armor fully negating the AP(if i had 12 points of impact armor to start with, otherwise more then negate it), there nothing like that i can do to add dice to my spell resistance.

[Nomad Zophiel]

And I can get a bigger gun with APDS. Or get a smartgun and shoot around a corner with only my hand exposed. Or pop out of total cover (free action), shoot a burst (simple) and duck back down (free but it takes my second simple) all in my own IP while a Mage can pop up (free) and double cast (complex) then stand there like a fool.

Now we're just nitpicking. Balanced doesn't and shouldn't mean identical. It means "not obviously overpowering". We've run this into the ground already and come up equal. That's balanced to me.

[Mäx]

How exactly is it equal, there are dozens of this´nks i can do to improve my chance of surviving somebody attack me with mundane means, but there's almost nothing i can do to improve my odds of surviving a magical attack.

[Nomad Zophiel]

Well, because the bullet example has always been very mediocre. Its based on several maximums that few characters reach and a particular round that, while neat, is not an end all and be all.  Yes, a non-magical character can probably resist bullets MUCH better. Then again, a magical character can resist spells much better. If you're going to compare magic against a mundane, though, the equivalent comparison is bullets against a mage, not against a Street Samruai.

[Mäx]

When we're talking about the survival of the said street samurai, the only comparison that matters is the bullets against him, compared to magic against him.

[Nomad Zophiel]

But we're not talking about mages being overpowered just when it comes to taking down a Street Samurai. We're talking about whether Mages are overpowered. The point of the example is that the Mage gets knocked down as easily by the Street Sam. Each one can KO the other in a single IP because each has less than optimal protection against the other's attack. The Street Sam probably has a higher armor rating than the Mage but doesn't have Counterspelling defense. The Mage has lower armor but Counterspelling. Based on the examples we were using, that would subtract 2 hits per attack, equivalent the difference between regular and insulated armor.