[SmilinIrish]

Anyone actually playing with direct damage spells?  Can't see the point.  Force of the spell matters only to set limit.  Damage is only net hits.  Seems that typically your are going to be getting 3-5 hits on your spellcasting test (assuming 12-16 dice), and your target is going to get 1-2 hits most likely, leaving you with 2-3 damage most of the time.  I do realize that 2-3 damage vs a crazy dodge monkey or tank troll might be better than nothing, but this still seems underwhelming.

I was thinking that half force rounded down sounded nice as base damage.  Just a little boost to make it comparable to direct damage spells. 

[Squirrel]

Maybe +1dmg for each point the force exceeds the attribute with which the spell was resisted with?

[Reaver]

Direct damage spells did take a beating in 5e..... I think it was an attempt to balance magic a little better and bring those spells more back to 3e standards.

(Direct damage spells were THE go to spells in 4e)

And they still have a place even if they have been reduced. (You mention the two bigger reasons.... astral targets being an other.)

I still use direct damage spells fairly often, however i have never had an enemy roll more then a single success to resist either. (Amazing how many characters and NPCs that have less then 4 Willpower!)

[Whiskeyjack]

I started playing 5e with somewhat of a disdain for directs due to the nerf.

They are now my current go to combat spells.

Why?

Force 1, set Limit to 8 with reagents, Witness My Hate, and a power focus with possible Edge reroll if I need it, for 1-3 Drain. Witness My Hate triggers after net hits are calculated for +2 DV. Makes it quite easy to one- or two-shot with Stunbolt (more likely 2, but a lot of NPCs have crap WIL). Casting at Force 1 makes me more comfortable doing Reckless Spellcasting for two of those in one pass as well.

Cost of reagents in these situations is of no real matter if you're getting paid any decent amount.

[Moonshine Fox]

It might not seem like much, but once you take into account the easy to make large pool of armor dice that can be thrown up to resist normal weapon damage it makes those boxes of damage pretty solid. It does fall short when throwing down with lightly to non armored combatents, but that's when you switch tracks and chuck a few lightning bolts and fireballs, saving your powerbolts and manaballs for the heavies. You also need to make sure you're attcking your opponents weak point on resistance. Give that troll a mana spell and the elven mage a physical spell. 

You'll need a number of different spells to be a nova-hot combat mage and engage in an amount of tactical thinking in their use. Also, don't forget to factor the use of foci into your spellcasting.

[Whiskeyjack]

Agreed.

Direct spells provide consistent damage that never needs to roll to hit. So you can grind down even people rocking high defense tests from Combat Sense, full defense options, or high Force Air Spirits.

Indirect single target spells produce attacks that can be dodged just like a gun. I often describe these as "a gun that bites you" since they are dodged just as easily as a single gunshot (which is fairly easy if you use cover and defense options). Frankly I see these as the least worthwhile of the three major combat spell types unless you need to scalpel out something close to an ally.

The real skew is indirect AoEs which can only be dodged like grenades and can be Spell Shaped to be too big to get out of the AoE even with that. The trade off is high Drain, necessity of casting at high Force due to how the spells work, and relatively low utility of using reagents (beyond casting at Force 6 at MAG 6 and setting the limit to 10, but then you're potentially taking physical Drain). The draw is they can really mess up allies too without smart use of Spell Shaping.

I don't think directs need any help beyond picking up Witness My Hate.

[SmilinIrish]

Not room for WMH in my build.  Do you feel that they are worthwhile without it?

[Whiskeyjack]

Yes, because the reagent trick still applies especially with regard to Reckless Spellcasting. Dropping two Stunbolts on an Air Spirit or heavy armor troll or super agile elf for negligible Drain is definitely worth it when you need to. Even casting at F6 you're looking at 5 Drain from reckless casting 2 spells and that is generally not that hard to resist. The risk goes down much further with Limit-setting as I said.

I'd buy WMH with karma tho.

[SmilinIrish]

RAW you can't drop two stunbolt per initiave pass or whatever they call it.  Hard fast rule of no two attack actions in single round.  Reckless spellcasting would let you cast an attack spell and an illusion, or healing, or something.  But they've been pretty clear that you can't make two attacks without splitting dice pool. 

[Whiskeyjack]

Huh. Good catch. Yeah in that case I'd probably drop a Stunbolt then Swarm, Chaotic World, or Hot Potato. Or take cover as a simple and cast as a simple, which I've done and which is quite a good idea sometimes in the first round. Or just not reckless cast.

Did they ever errata how splitting the dice pool for magic occurs before all mods, unlike splitting the dice pool for every other action being after mods, thus allowing you to easily split and throw like 6 spells in an action that way with minimal real effect on your dice pool?

That came up once in my old group. Hilarious but probably not intended (or if intended, wtf?)

In any case, yes directs are weaker. But they are definitely offset by not being dodgeable, not needing to roll to hit, being hard to resist if you're not a high WIL Mage (in which case, hit them with Ball Lightning and call it a day) and being very easy to skew using reagents with no real drawback. Sometimes consistent damage is more important than one huge burst that may not hit or may be soaked with super armor builds.

[Sengir]

Yep, reagents are the way to go. OK, it's more expensive than just casting a spell, but about the same price as a hand grenade and so much more versatile

[Whiskeyjack]

I'll note that if reagent cost is ever a major issue, barring blowing hundreds at a time or specific plot that affects pay days, runs should absolutely cover the cost and majorly then some.

The biggest up front cost for a mage is going to be binding spirits as well. But if you have 5 bound spirits with a few services each, you're set for a good long while and can still conjure up one for the night on top of it.

[Beta]

Shaman in my game used his stunbolt rarely for the longest time--when he used it early on it hit for so little that he didn't think about it much.  Still, he found some occasions where it was the right spell for the job.

Then his long karma-hoarding finally paid off and he got a force six spirit ally, and realized that combined with the combat focus he'd picked up along the way, he could be rolling twenty-one dice on stun bolt, averaging seven successes.   Opponents will still seldom roll more than two successes to resist (barring counter-magic).  Now it is a monster of a spell!

So I think the thing about direct combat spells is that they scale up in power quite differently than do most other attacks, because defenses won't scale in the same way.

[Whiskeyjack]

I totally agree with you. I would not be preaching the utility of direct spells if not for my power focus and Witness My Hate boosting the dice pool and adding the flat +2 damage. I have done perfectly well otherwise with a Sigma-3 loaded with SnS in the same game. The real utility is the hard and dodgy targets.

[Beta]

I totally agree with you. I would not be preaching the utility of direct spells if not for my power focus and Witness My Hate boosting the dice pool and adding the flat +2 damage. I have done perfectly well otherwise with a Sigma-3 loaded with SnS in the same game. The real utility is the hard and dodgy targets.

Where does Witness my Hate come from?  (not the core book or Street Grimoire, I don't see it in the version of Chummer5 I'm running .... I'm guessing it must have come out in Run Faster?  (RF is on my list to get at some point, but as we aren't currently making characters I picked up Lockdown as my book for the Summer :-/   Too many books came out in short order!)