Problems with astral combat is it is melee, even with astral movement speeds, range generally win, plus spells can be used in melee ranges with little to know penalties. Stunbolts range is line of sight and without astral projection you can't really chase atral beings.
Ok let’s compare a stunbolt cast at force 6 with the sword. So at force 6 the max damage is, um, 6. I only get 12 dice for that if I've maxed out my spellcasting, so most likely I won’t even get the 6, probably more like 4 or 5. Each time I cast, I have to make a drain resist, in this case, the target number is only 3. If I am playing the more caster oriented version, I would have 13 dice to resist this with. Should be fine, but occasionally I will only get one or two hits, resulting in drain. Let’s give the defender a 4 on will, giving him 1 or 2 hits on average, leaving me with a damage of around 3 or 4.
The sword is as follows, AGI+blades+focus rating (5+5+4) = 14. If I max out blades it would be 15. With reach, I get another die if my opponent has none. My limit, however, is 6 for Physical. Damage is Str+3+1(for critical strike)for a total of 8. Now, let's say I only get 5 or 6 hits with this roll, resulting in a total damage value of 13 or 14. Then there is no drain. Let’s give the defender a 4 on both reaction and intuition, so he gets 8 dice, with an average of 3 hits. So I do around 11 damage. Now let’s assume our goon has rating 6 armor and a body of 4. The sword has AP-3, so they get 7 dice. Average is probably around 3 for that. That gives me a final damage of around 8. That is twice as good as the spell, with no chance of drain.
Now I understand that astral combat is rougher, but let’s assume I am fighting a spirit inside a building, and they, for whatever reason, are not materialized and is in melee range. If for any reason I can't reach them I use the spell. The math above holds for a spirit rated at 4. If they flee, fine, that's what we wanted. If they stay in melee range (let's pretend the spirit wants to attack me, and he has no ranged attacks) we have different values.
For melee, a rating 4 spirit has values of 4 for intuition and logic. My attack would be similar with astral combat instead of blades, being Astral Combat skill plus willpower plus focus rating (+4+5+4)or 13. If I maxed it, it would be 15 instead. My limit is 7 for this test, however, but with 13-15 dice I probably won’t hit that a whole lot. Again Let’s say I get 5 or 6 hits, that sounds about average. My opponent would probably get 3 hits, as above. Now, the sword uses CHR for astral beings instead of strength, so now the damage is CHR+3+1, so 12 plus the result of the roll, making it 14 or 15. That doesn’t suck. Now the spirit gets to resist with his force 4, let’s be nice and give him 2 hits. 12-13 final damage. That is 3 times the damage of the spell, with no drain.
Please correct me if I have anything wrong! I’m tired, it’s been a long day.
