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kv:
Are there any benefits for learning exclusive spells?

  -kv

Retread:
Yes, Exclusive spells either take 2 less karma to learn or are considered 2 force below for the purpose of drain (basically lowering the drain power by 1) Unfortunately, exclusion is very nasty when you're trying to sustain some buffs for yourself or your allies.

Some exclusive spells are terribly easy to learn, along with some fetish required spells. For example, if you learn a fetish-required version of powerbolt, you can learn the force 1 version for free if it is fetish-required or you can learn the force 2 version of a spell for free if it is Exclusive. You must however, still have the spell formula and take the time required to study and learn it.

That is, however, my interpretation of the rules, it never specifically says the spell is free, but why would anyone learn a fetish-limited version of a force 1 spell if it didn't have any discount?

ROOTless:
Then again, why would anyone want to learn a Force 1 version of a resisted spell?

K_V: Do you remember my lightning bolt?
Because it was exclusion limited, I couldn't cast it while doing something else, like maintaining another spell.
However, I could cast it at Force 7, while taking drain as if it was Force 5. That meant I didn't take physical drain, and was actually able to gather enough successes to take no drain at all after the dice fell, while at the same time causing a target number my opponent was unable to resist (7-1 for armor was a 6).

That's how you use exclusively limited spells.

Retread:
Why would someone want to learn a force 1 spell? Easy, if you throw enough dice at a problem, there's really no way for someone to resist. A force 1 powerbolt with 6 successes behind it is dangerous to most normal people. It's not like learning it at force two will do any better, one way or another the target number to resist is still 2.

Six sorcery dice plus six spell pool with a light damage force 1 manabolt will pretty much maim someone regardless of how many Willpower dice they have. Additionally, this allows a magician to learn a variety of spells right off the Matrix on Magicknet or the Magick Undernet simply in their spare time. They can also design spells in their spare time just to test their effects before blowing 6 karma in designing and learning the higher force version of the spell. I'd much rather save my karma for initiation and raising my skills than on high force spells.

Elemental manipulations do not require high force for their primary usefulness to take effect, which is their ability to do all sorts of other nastiness to a target besides harm them. According to the rules, force doesn't really affect secondary effects but rather the damage level. So resisting a force 2 moderate damage fireball really won't help you if all the ammunition you're carrying explodes anyway. For direct damage you should use combat spells and save the elemental manipulations for special situations, like lightning bolting the guy using his radio to call for backup.

kv:
Cool- thanks to both of you!

  -kv

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