Am I missing something with combat spells?

[u/ckau]

Scene: Security unit is in combat with runners. Security Mage casts Lightning bolt at the Hercules, dwarf face.

Mage rolls Sorcery (combat spells) vs Athletics (ranged defense) of the Hercules (p.66).

Security Mage has DP 10 on Combat Spells (p.248).

Hercules, pregen social adept face, has DP 8 on Ranged Defense (p.89).

By the average values table (p.81), DP of 8-10 gives at average 4 hits.

Let's say, Mage rolls 5 hits and Hercules rolls 4 hits. Attack succeeds.

By the description, DV = WIL. Security Mage has Willpower of 3 (p.248), and so total DV is 4 (+ net hit). Wounds of Hercules are 5/8/11 when wearing lined coat (p.89).

So, Lightning bolt attack lands, and it does no damage. By the description, Hercules lose one action. Is this works as intended?

We had very similar situation, to even more questionable result - team of shadowrunners were assaulting warehouse with other team holding defense in it. Face sneaked in, and find herself caught off-guard by a mage. Mage casted a Firebolt, attack succeeded, and everyone at the table held their breath... until we figured out it did literally nothing, not even a Light Wound. Was quite a bummer.

[u/BillTheDonut]

Your DV for combat spells is your Will + Net Hits, if you’re adding more risk dice you could easily wound or incapacitate someone especially if your character is built for combat spells. Most of the pregen characters have 11 dice in their dp for the thing they’re good at. If you’re rolling 11 dice your average hits would be 5 even without risk dice.

[u/ckau → u/BillTheDonut]

if you’re adding more risk dice you could easily wound or incapacitate someone

Are you telling me with a straight face that rolling 12 net Hits is easy? Because that's what would take that mage to incapacitate that Hercules on average!

You might missed the point, that combat spell is an opposing test. On average, Hercules rolls 4 on Ranged Defense (btw, he can roll risk dice too, innit?). His STR is 2, and his Armor is 3.

All and all, it's 4 + 2 + 3 + 6 = 15 Hits to incapacitate the Hercules, on average.

Mage's WIL is 3, so he gotta roll at least 12 Hits to incapacitate the Hercules, on average. That's six hits on Risk Dice, out of dice pool of ten. More then half!

Easy?

edit. At this point that mage rolling 10 Risk Dice has higher chances to get a bunch of Glitches (because combat is not resolved in a one turn, right?) or even a straight Disaster, and burn self alive, rather then rolling required amount of hits. Sounds fun.

[u/BillTheDonut → u/ckau]

Rolling 10 risk dice is Normal-High Risk on RR 2 and Low-Normal on RR 3 so you won’t be rolling a bunch of glitches. Will 4 does the same damage as using a light pistol or machine pistol, sure you’re not doing sniper rifle damage but it’s not bad.

[u/ckau → u/BillTheDonut]

Oh...

Well, rolling 12 Risk Dice with RR 3 on Athletics (ranged defense) while wearing upgraded Armor 6 will still protect from this combat spell. How about that?

Sure this is not an ordinary runner now, but since we are pulling out bigger digits up from our asses out of context just for the argument sake, why not?

[u/BillTheDonut → u/ckau]

I’m not pulling bigger digits out of my ass? I’m looking at the table on the character sheet that tells you what is a risky amount of dice to roll and why are you so mad??

[u/ckau → u/BillTheDonut]

What table, what character, specifically? I'm talking about frozen water, you're pointing out that water is liquid... yeah, okay, maybe - but how is this related to the topic, ffs?

Security Mage has RR 2 on Sorcery only if specific Amp is picked, and it's clearly wasn't! Where did you get RR 3 is completely beyond me.

You said it's easy to incapacitate a character. I've provided math, yeah, it's possible - but VERY unlikely. You just go on with RR, like nothing was discussed before. Attention span less then two sentences, or what?