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[bull30548]

Ok in a SR4 game I was playing a hermetic mage magic rating 5 initiate lvl. 1 with centering my metamagic feat.  This is just background info the real kicker is this.  I tore apart a Nightsky by myself with two spellcasts.  They were the same spell though Powerbolt.  Anyway my shirt was targeting the backdoor of the limo.  I got 4 successes which added to my damage making it 9 (Force five was the highest I could do).  The car had a structure of 6 so I surpassed that by three meaning I did 9 damage to the car structure.  Thus ripping off the back end of the limo.  I threw the second at the front door of the car.  This time I got 5 successe thus surpassing the structure of the car.  Again I rip the car apat this time the front part.  This is how the GM expalined the scene. (I did no damge to the occupants since it was a specific target.)

Does this seem just a bit overboard for magic?

[Curris]

I thought that additional successes made the target number to resist go up, not damage levels. . . otherwise resisting drain of damage Deadly + + + would be fatal, to say the least.

Also, I thought that it was (Number of successes) / 2 = modifier, not number of successes. . .

But it's been a while, and I have only read four pages of 4th Edition. . .

[Gabriel]

So far I've steered clear of 4th Edition SR, but that sounds REALLY wrong to me. I don't think a Rating 5 Spell of any sort could do that much damage to a high-tech target like a limo. I could be wrong (like I said I am steering cler of SR4), but you may very well want to review that scenario and find out if you may have forgotten something.

Gabriel

[Retread]

Inanimate objects DO NOT make resistance tests and individual parts may not be targeted with a combat spell. Elemental manipulations however can.

Let's break it down according to 3rd edition rules:

A mitsubishi nightsky has a body of 4 and armor of 2 (stock) The body is added to half the armor for a 5 added to the object resistance rating of the vehicle. So the target number to hit the nightsky (the entire thing) with a powerbolt would be 13. The extra eight is a result of the vehicle being made of advanced plastics or metal alloys. Also, the force of the spell must exceed the armor rating of the vehicle to have an effect. In 3rd edition, it's much better just to shoot out the tires or windows and then cast a spell against the driver or simply blast the road with a powerball instead.

If Object resistance ratings are not appicable in 4th edition, then magic is indeed very powerful. I suspect however, that you are missing something, perhaps the damage at the end is reduced by the vehicle's structure, therefore you only did 3 damage instead of 9? Perhaps the force must exceed the structure? I do not know, but that's is indeed very different from 3rd edition.

[Ingo Monk]

First spell did nothing, second spell did no damage as well.

Rules (in the order I looked them up):

SR4 pg 174:

A spell cast on a non-living, non-magic target is not resisted,as the object has no life force and thus no connection to mana with which to oppose the casting of the spell (note that only Physical spells will affect non-living objects; mana spells have no effect). Highly processed and artificial items are more difficult to affect than natural, organic objects. Spells cast on non-living objects require a Success Test with a threshold based on the type of object affected (see the Object Resistance Table,). Note that objects targeted by Indirect Combat spells do get to resist the damage as they would any anged attack, use only their Armor rating x 2 (or just Armor against spells with elemental effects) to resist the damage caused (see Barriers, p. 157).

SR4 pg 175:
OBJECT RESISTANCE TABLE
Natural Objects
(Trees, Soil, Unprocessed Water) 1

Manufactured Low-Tech Objects and Materials
(Brick, Leather, Simple Plastics) 2

Manufactured High-Tech Objects and Materials
(Advanced Plastics, Alloys, Electronic Equipment) 3

Highly Processed Objects
(Computers, Complex Toxic Wastes, Drones, Vehicles) 4+

SR4 pg 56

Thresholds
Hits represent a measure of achievement on a test. In order to succeed completely on a Success Test, you must meet or exceed a gamemaster-determined threshold with your hits. The higher the threshold, the more difficult an action is. The standard threshold is 1 (so only 1 hit is necessary to succeed), though other tests may have a threshold as high as 4. The Difficulty Table lists a range of difficulty levels along with a standard threshold for each. In some cases, a threshold modifier may apply to an action, raising or lowering the threshold by the stated amount. The more net hits a character scores (the more hits exceed the threshold), the more the task was pulled off with finesse and flair. So a character who rolls 4 hits on a threshold 2 test has scored 2 net hits. The gamemaster does not have to (and should not) tell the player what the threshold for any test is before she rolls, unless the character has good reason to know exactly how difficult the action will be. If the threshold is larger than the character’s dice pool, then there is simply no way the character can succeed unless she spends Edge (see p. 67).

SR4 pg 161

VEHICLE DAMAGE
Whenever a vehicle is hit by an attack, it resists damage as normal, rolling Body + Armor. If the attack’s modified DV does not exceed the vehicle’s modified Armor, no damage is applied. Note that since many vehicles will have large Body dice pools, gamemasters are encouraged to use the trade-in-dice-for-hits rule (4 dice = 1 hit) to simplify tests. Your average tank, for example, will automatically get 4 hits on a Body Test by trade in, so there is no point in rolling unless the hits needed are higher than 4.)

SR4 pg 342

Mitsubishi Nightsky
Body: 12
Armor: 10

Due process:
You cast a powerbolt spell at Force 5 and get 4 successes.  The threshold to affect the vehicle is 4, making a successful spellcast but no net hits.  The spell does 5 damage.  Note that inanimate objects do not get to resist the spell, but they do get to resist the damage.  Using the Vehicle Damage rules on pg 161, you can buy 1 success for every 4 dice you get to roll.  The Nightsky has a damage resistance pool of 22 dice (body 12, armor 10).  Divide 22 by 4 and you get 5.5, or 6 automatic successes.  With 6 automatic successes, 5 damage is reduced to 0.

The second power bolt is cast at Force 5 with 5 successes.  Minus the threshold of 4, you get 1 net hit making the damage 6.  Again, the Nightsky gets 6 automatic successes reducing the damage to 0.

"But this is MAGIC!" you claim.  Simple, Powerbolt is a physical spell, thus affects the vehicle physically.  And physically the vehicle has a lot of armor and a very high body rating.

Any questions?

[Retread]

That's a sort of roundabout way of doing it. Does the whole vehicle need to be targeted in 4th edition too? Because it seems like a door would have a lower body rating.

[Ingo Monk]

Stats I gave are for the whole car.  It's really GM speculation though, I'd say the door would have the same armor rating but a lower body rating.

[bull30548]

An ironic thing about this is with the way that part of the system I will just sit strapped in a Nightsky.  Lowfyr could never hit me or get to me on a physical level since he could never net more successes to damage the vehicle.  Now if you treat said vehicle as a barrier which is what it was designed to do was block.  Then you would apply the structure rating system for applying damage.  

Also based on your math which on that same page is an example of how many succeses a tank automatically gets is 4.  So a nightsky is tougher than a tank now?  Boy why is the military even using those slow tanks anymore?  Think there is an error somewhere.  Because see my point could be valid as well as yours.  It is dependant on how you want to apply things and all that.  Oh and by the way take a look at barrier ratings for physical and mana walls.  Unless you over cast the bastard to the maxiimum your barrier is going to last maybe a combat round if you are lucky.  Cause a barrier rating of six versus a predator 4 or anything with a burst or full auto capabilities.  Pop bye bye barrier hello bullet to mage.  Such a nice barrier it was too.

[ROOTless]

That's a sort of roundabout way of doing it. Does the whole vehicle need to be targeted in 4th edition too? Because it seems like a door would have a lower body rating.

IIRC, in 3rd edition, he power bolt spell cannot target the door seperately from the vehicle.
So no dice.

[Retread]

Heh, these rules were supposed to be simpler, right?

I also doubt Lofwyr would bother, he'd just have a spirit manifest inside the limo and burn everyone alive.

[Ingo Monk]

Realistically, Lofwyr could just snap his fingers and blow up the Nightsky (remember the rules for characters without stats?)

The example about the tank says it would automatically get 4 successes in a Body test, so that means it has at least a Body rating of 16.  It doesn't talk about armor rating.  I had to read that passage a couple of times before I got it  The Ares Citymaster, a riot control vehicle, has a Body of 16 and an Armor rating of 20 (which gives you a total damage resistance pool of 36, or 9 automatic successes).

Also don't forget that a magician can overcast, which is to cast a spell at a higher force rating than their magic rating.  The Drain becomes physical though.  So in theory your character could have casted the powerbolt spell at Force 10.  Taken that into consideration, your first cast against the Nightsky would have done 4 points of damage, and the second would have done 5 points of damage (leaving the limo severly damaged).

Your character as a level 1 initiate has a maximum magic rating of 7 (though it is currently at 5).  If you were to increase your magic rating to 7 the maximum force you could cast spells at would be 14, which could blow up a whole lot of things

You know, the more I work with SR4 rules the more I'm getting to like them

[Retread]

Err... So you don't have to spend x karma to learn said force 14 spell?

[Ingo Monk]

No, you spend X karma to learn spell, and are able to cast it at any force rating you want to up to twice your magic rating.  When you cast a spell at a force higher than your magic rating you are considered 'overcasting' and any drain is physical damage.

[ROOTless]

That's new.

[Curris]

Have you got a book or page number for that? Or a more generic source?

What if a spell has physical drain to begin with?