[Xenon]

Random question do they add touch indirect attack spells into the game and if so how do they work, I don't think that has ever been answered in any of the previous editions.

Indirect combat spells in earlier editions were resolved as regular melee and ranged attacks and avoided (rather than resisted) like you avoid regular melee and ranged attacks (reaction + intuition). Indirect combat spells are not subtle they are always obvious. And the target will always try to avoid them. Unless surprised or otherwise unaware. The target only roll to avoid getting hit (reaction + intuition) once, targets don't get two chances to avoid getting hit. Magician need to resist drain no matter if the target successfully avoid getting hit or not (no mystic link needed in this case, even ranged spells didn't require that the magician actually could see the true light of their target).

Direct combat spells are typically not avoided, they are resisted (no matter if the target is surprised or unaware or if the target is fully aware of what you are doing). Touch based direct combat spells typically mean that you casually touch the target as you cast the spell. In some cases the target might be allowed to take a test to avoid getting touched. This was resolved as an Unarmed Combat test. If the target was successful then the magician would not cast the spell (the mystic link is not established yet) and there will be no drain to resist (same as if magician could not see the true light of the target for a ranged direct spell the mystic link would also not be established and the spell would not be cast). If the magician was successful (even a tie was enough) the magician would cast the spell as normal.

The rules around this are not very clear (because 5ed) but it was clarified (in the SR5 FAQ Thread IIRC).

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

6e never said you can't snipe spells at physical targets while you're astrally projecting.  6e only prohibits this while you're manifesting.  "Clearly", the intent is that the prohibition should also include projecting while not manifesting.  That's an example of where the "this is how it worked in 5e" rationale is reasonable.

I'm going to say that Touch range spells is NOT one of those cases.  6e explicitly breaks from prior editions in a couple ways, and that makes "well this is how 5e did it" particularly unreliable due to those hard breaks.

in 6e:
Direct combat spells are resisted by rolling WIL + INT (a hard change from prior editions)
Indirect combat spells are resisted by rolling REA + WIL (another hard change from 5e)

per page 131, this is what we know about how Touch range spells work in 6e:

(Touch Range), meaning the target
needs to be touched in order for the spell to
take effect (when touching an unwilling target,
make an unarmed Close Combat attack, and
subtract the target’s Armor rating from their
Defense Rating for this attack)

It doesn't say whether this is in addition to or in place of the standard Sorcery + MAG test as normal for delivering the spell.

Logically the possibilities are:
1) it's in place of
2) it's in addition to
3) neither of the above

I don't think 1 can be right, as the Close Combat skill is only establishing that a condition for casting the spell is met.  Ultimately, the spell ought to still be cast via the Sorcery + MAG test. And, in the case of combat spells, you're going to compare AR to DR AGAIN for the spell itself, anyway.  But, acknowledged, option 2 slows the game down by adding another test to the process of resolving the action.  But, since both spells are resisted at least in part by Willpower, I don't have any "suspension of disbelief" problems with why an indirect combat spell might still "miss" after a touch was successfully established.

3) is an interesting wild card.  It's probably the realm for where house rules would go that rely on logic that is not present in what the 6e rules establish.  Something I could see as being completely reasonable is similar to what Xenon suggested in a different context: make one test but use the lower of the two involved skills.  Use the lesser of Close Combat or Spellcasting + MAG to deliver a Touch range spell in one test.  I don't think there's solid grounds for that to be an official take, but it's absolutely a fine way to run it for your own game.

[Lormyr]

Speaking of which, what does it take to become such a reviewer? Where does one apply, if that's even a thing?

I'd ask SSDR. He has mostly good sense and at least has their ear sometimes. . .

[Banshee]

I'd just love to know what the hell some of these guys are thinking when they print some of this stuff.

I don't think they have a rules guy on their team. It is like a team of fluff writers trying to make a simulationist system instead of a narrative one where they might shine. Some of the mechanical flaws are so obvious just one rules guy would spot it just by glancing through even without any kind deep read.

Hey ... some of us are rules guys,  but we can only do so much. Plus I avoid magic whenever possible. I pitched a complete overhaul back during 6e development and got shot down so I leave alone now.

I can see that in the main book it is heavily segregated in style and quality by chapter but a rules guy needs to go over the entire book before release which is what I mean by on their team, the decisions and game math in the magic section for example have such obvious flaws to me. A dude who contributes who is good with rules, isn't the same as a dude in the decision process of the game. And in a supplement I just don't get it. It is one theme, its short, have a rules guy go over it before it ships.

Abso-fragging-lutely ... I actually proposed that very concept and volunteered to do it for free even.

[Xenon]

Much harder to argue RAW in SR6 due to how the rules are written.
Almost all discussions boils down to RAI.


As you noted, RAW (as we are used to read it from previous edition) there is no longer any rule preventing you from casting physical spells on physical targets while projecting, but RAI it is still perfectly clear that this is [still] not intended.

In SR5 everything that was allowed and their exceptions were listed. You were not really meant to make any assumptions. It was a stricter language. (but as a result there was a lot of RAW argumentations were sentences and or even individual words were analyzed in absurdum)

In SR6 the main rules are still there, but many of all clarifying (but perhaps redundant?) rules were cut. It is deliberately a more open ended language. It made RAW discussions pretty pointless. But it also made it also made it much harder to understand what the original intent was. Unless perhaps you had some prior knowledge of how it used to work or that the author described more in detail what he meant.


Compare the following,

SR5
"Physical spells can affect both living and non-living objects in the physical world." followed by this clarifying (but in SR6 perhaps considered redundant) rule: "magician in astral space can only cast spells on targets that are present in astral space".

SR6
"Physical spells only affect the physical realm."

The fact that you can't cast spells on the physical plane from the astral plane was never established to begin with. It was simply assumed to be clear that it still work as it did in previous edition anyway (the book is full of cases like this - the 'grapple' discussion we had earlier, for example, is likely another case - but there are also others).

Later they talk about astral projection and that you can turn into a Ghost... It is here they mention that [while manifesting] "You also cannot cast spells at targets solely on the physical plane" (if it wasn't for this it would be tricky to understand if the intent was that it should work as before or if it was deliberately changed).

[Banshee]

Speaking of which, what does it take to become such a reviewer? Where does one apply, if that's even a thing?

Honestly... bug the hell out of Jason Hardy until he let's you in then grab every opportunity you can. That's what I did. Started out as a demo agent, then got on the Missions committee, the got into proofing ... and now he let's me write stuff. You can skip the demo agent if you go directly to Jason via Facebook or something... but working as an agent at the cons pit me in his personal space more often.

[Odsh]

Speaking of which, what does it take to become such a reviewer? Where does one apply, if that's even a thing?

Honestly... bug the hell out of Jason Hardy until he let's you in then grab every opportunity you can. That's what I did. Started out as a demo agent, then got on the Missions committee, the got into proofing ... and now he let's me write stuff. You can skip the demo agent if you go directly to Jason via Facebook or something... but working as an agent at the cons pit me in his personal space more often.

Duly noted, thanks!

I'd ask SSDR. He has mostly good sense and at least has their ear sometimes. . .

 

[Shinobi Killfist]

Sigh, I decided to buy this to give SR6 one more shot for our group, firing squad was a improvement not a big one but it was one, got the PDF, the book was supposed to be on the way, instead firing squad shows up which I already have. I hate reading PDFs.

[Shinobi Killfist]

The book is weirdly sparse of qualities, edge moves, heck metamagics.

Like this feels like book 3 of a magic series, you know book 1 is where they crank out 90% of the stuff that is missing from the previous edition, books 2 and 3 they start creating new content.  It is oddly organized, each section just feels kind of sparse.  Also the codified rules for spirit relations just made me sigh.  Don't give people numbers or a system, if you do it will get abused.  I can absolutely guarantee if I used them even my douchiest summoner would have +10 rep within 5-6 sessions, so basically I know handed the mage much much better spirits. 

[Beta]

I've finally bought this and am reading through it, and it has made me want to make a 6e spellcaster.

... just to take "Grimmy the Grimoire" as a contact

(I know this is very late input, but kudos to whoever put Grimmy in, I really enjoyed that)