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From:	Carmen Anthony J carmen.aj@******.com
Subject:	Question about Spell Defense
Date:	Tue, 30 May 2000 10:52:45 -0400

Message no. 1 As a GM new to SR, I've been trying to puzzle out the mechanics of
using Spell Defense dice in SR3. I just can't seem to get a handle on the
rules. According to SR3, a magician may allocate Sorcery and Spell Pool
dice to defense. Now, does this mean that magicians have access to a
"Defense Pool" equal to their Spell Pool + Sorcery, one which presumably
refreshes every Combat Turn? Or, as with holding back Sorcery dice for
Drain, do dice used for Spell Defense deduct from the number available to
cast spells? For example, if Joe-Bob the shaman has a Sorcery of 6 and
decides during his first Initiative Pass to put 2 Sorcery dice towards
defense, he only has 4 remaining for casting a spell (or whatever). If this
is true, and it turns out Joe-Bob didn't use the defense dice, what happens
during his second Initiative Pass? Are those defense dice still available
(meaning he would still have 2 set aside for defense and his full 6 Sorcery
dice for whatever), or does he have to re-allocate his 6 dice every Pass?
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Thanx in advance,
Tony

From:	kawaii trunks@********.org
Subject:	Question about Spell Defense
Date:	Tue, 30 May 2000 11:15:10 -0400

Message no. 2 From: "Carmen Anthony J" <carmen.aj@******.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2000 10:52 AM

> As a GM new to SR, I've been trying to puzzle out the mechanics of
> using Spell Defense dice in SR3. I just can't seem to get a handle on the
> rules. According to SR3, a magician may allocate Sorcery and Spell Pool
> dice to defense. Now, does this mean that magicians have access to a
> "Defense Pool" equal to their Spell Pool + Sorcery, one which presumably
> refreshes every Combat Turn? Or, as with holding back Sorcery dice for
> Drain, do dice used for Spell Defense deduct from the number available to
> cast spells? For example, if Joe-Bob the shaman has a Sorcery of 6 and
> decides during his first Initiative Pass to put 2 Sorcery dice towards
> defense, he only has 4 remaining for casting a spell (or whatever). If
this
> is true, and it turns out Joe-Bob didn't use the defense dice, what
happens
> during his second Initiative Pass? Are those defense dice still available
> (meaning he would still have 2 set aside for defense and his full 6
Sorcery
> dice for whatever), or does he have to re-allocate his 6 dice every Pass?
> Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanx in advance,
> Tony
>
>

I was under the impression that spell defense worked in the following
manner:

Joe-Bob decides to allocate 2 dice to spell defense from his 6 dice of
sorcery. He would not get those two dice back until the beginning of the
next TURN, not initiative pass. During the current turn, however, he would
get those two dice for spell defense for the entire turn (until he used them
up, as they are in a "defense pool" and pools don't refresh until beginning
of turn.)

I may be wrong. =P (it has been a while since i've judged spell combat. Or
Gm'ed for SR mages, for that matter. =P)

Ever lovable and always scrappy,
kawaii

From:	Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject:	Question about Spell Defense
Date:	Tue, 30 May 2000 19:45:07 +0200

Message no. 3 According to Carmen Anthony J, at 10:52 on 30 May 00, the word on the
street was...

> As a GM new to SR, I've been trying to puzzle out the mechanics of
> using Spell Defense dice in SR3. I just can't seem to get a handle on the
> rules. According to SR3, a magician may allocate Sorcery and Spell Pool
> dice to defense. Now, does this mean that magicians have access to a
> "Defense Pool" equal to their Spell Pool + Sorcery, one which presumably
> refreshes every Combat Turn? Or, as with holding back Sorcery dice for
> Drain, do dice used for Spell Defense deduct from the number available to
> cast spells?

Magicians can split their Sorcery skill into multiple "pools" of dice --
for example, to cast two spells in one action, you allocate some Sorcery
dice to each. Spell defense is a variation on this, in that you allocate
some Sorcery skill dice to resisting incoming spells. In effect, your
Sorcery skill is reduced by this same amount for as long as you want to
provide spell defense.

> For example, if Joe-Bob the shaman has a Sorcery of 6 and decides during
> his first Initiative Pass to put 2 Sorcery dice towards defense, he only
> has 4 remaining for casting a spell (or whatever).

Yes.

> If this is true, and it turns out Joe-Bob didn't use the defense dice,
> what happens during his second Initiative Pass? Are those defense dice
> still available (meaning he would still have 2 set aside for defense and
> his full 6 Sorcery dice for whatever)

He'd have two dice for spell defense, and his Sorcery skill for other
purposes is 4.

> or does he have to re-allocate his 6 dice every Pass?

Allocating spell defense dice is a free action, so any time Joe-Bob has a
free action, he can change the number of dice he wants to reserve for
spell defense. So on his next action, he could use his free action to re-
allocate all his Sorcery dice to spellcasting (i.e. take them away from
spell defense) and use them to cast a spell with. Alternatively, he could
do this on someone else's action, because Joe-Bob gets a free action at
those times, too.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Here come the golden oldies. Here come the Hezbollah.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
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Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998

From:	TalonMail@*.com TalonMail@*.com
Subject:	Question about Spell Defense
Date:	Tue, 30 May 2000 16:05:07 EDT

Message no. 4 Carmen Anthony J <carmen.aj@******.com> wrote:
>As a GM new to SR, I've been trying to puzzle out the mechanics of

>using Spell Defense dice in SR3. I just can't seem to get a handle on the

>rules. According to SR3, a magician may allocate Sorcery and Spell Pool

>dice to defense. Now, does this mean that magicians have access to a

>"Defense Pool" equal to their Spell Pool + Sorcery, one which presumably

>refreshes every Combat Turn? Or, as with holding back Sorcery dice for

>Drain, do dice used for Spell Defense deduct from the number available to

>cast spells?

The latter. Sorcery and Spell Pool dice allocated to Spell Defense are not
available for casting spells or any other purpose. So magicians have to
divide up their dice between the different things they want to do with
Sorcery in any given Initiative Pass.

Steve Kenson

Talon Studio
http://members.aol.com/talonmail

From:	Sebastian Wiers m0ng005e@*********.com
Subject:	Question about Spell Defense
Date:	Tue, 30 May 2000 17:41:47 -0500

Message no. 5 : As a GM new to SR, I've been trying to puzzle out the mechanics of
:using Spell Defense dice in SR3. I just can't seem to get a handle on the
:rules. According to SR3, a magician may allocate Sorcery and Spell Pool
:dice to defense. Now, does this mean that magicians have access to a
:"Defense Pool" equal to their Spell Pool + Sorcery, one which presumably
:refreshes every Combat Turn? Or, as with holding back Sorcery dice for
:Drain, do dice used for Spell Defense deduct from the number available to
:cast spells?

The later. They effectively create a defense pool by setting asside
(alocating) unused spell pool and sorcery dice that were not used on thier
last pass.

: For example, if Joe-Bob the shaman has a Sorcery of 6 and
:decides during his first Initiative Pass to put 2 Sorcery dice towards
:defense, he only has 4 remaining for casting a spell (or whatever). If
this
:is true, and it turns out Joe-Bob didn't use the defense dice, what happens
:during his second Initiative Pass? Are those defense dice still available
:(meaning he would still have 2 set aside for defense and his full 6 Sorcery
:dice for whatever), or does he have to re-allocate his 6 dice every Pass?
: Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

The 2 dice allocated would remain so; if that's the only defense JB
wants, he need no re-allocate dice. The other 4 sorcery dice could be used
to cast a spell or whatever.
If he wanted to cast a spell using more than those 4 dice, JB could do
so, but he'd loose some allocated defense dice. Afaik there is no required
action to drop defense, and actions like spellcasting include allocating
sorcery dice to the spell. Alternately, if he wanted an even better
defense, he could allocate MORE dice to that purpose, if not used for some
other purpose.
What this means in practice is mages who have a spare free action can
put all thier remaining spell pool and unused sorcery dice towards defense.
It doesn't hurt them any, because when it comes time to cast a spell, they
can still use the dice that way, and will generally have a chance to
re-allocate once they aren't busy casting spells. That also means the best
time to try to zap a mage is immediately after he casts a spell...

Mongoose

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From:	Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com
Subject:	Question about Spell Defense
Date:	Tue, 30 May 2000 19:30:36 -0700 (PDT)

Message no. 6 <Snippola(TM)>
> The latter. Sorcery and Spell Pool dice allocated to
Spell Defense are not available for casting spells or
any other purpose. So magicians have to divide up
their dice between the different things they want to
do with Sorcery in any given Initiative Pass.
> Steve Kenson

Steve, you only answered half the boy's question. :)

IIRC, Tony, if you allocate dice to spell defense in
one pass, on your next action in the next initiative
pass, you CAN choose to reallocate those dice back to
sorcery or your spell pool, but ONLY if you haven't
already used them as spell defense dice in the
meantime. Once you use them, they don't refresh until
the next round.

So say Joe-Bob has two actions and he allocates 4 of
his 6 sorcery dice to spell defense in his first
action. For the rest of that pass he only has 2
sorcery dice for casting spells. Say during that pass
he uses 3 of those 4 spell defense dice. On his next
action on the next pass he has 1 spell defense die
unused. He could choose to leave it as spell defense
or reallocate it back to sorcery (which would give him
3 dice for casting spells for the rest of the turn).

At the start of the next turn, the 3 spell defense
dice he used refresh. However, I can't remember if
they refresh as sorcery dice, or are still allocated
to spell defense. Can someone answer that one?

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'booner, aka Doc' Vader)

S.S. f. P.S.C. & D.J.

.sig Sauer

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From:	Manolis Skoulikas great_worm@*****.com
Subject:	Question about Spell Defense
Date:	Wed, 31 May 2000 01:50:37 +0300

Message no. 7 kawaii wrote:
>
> I was under the impression that spell defense worked in the following
> manner:
>
> Joe-Bob decides to allocate 2 dice to spell defense from his 6 dice of
> sorcery. He would not get those two dice back until the beginning of the
> next TURN, not initiative pass. During the current turn, however, he would
> get those two dice for spell defense for the entire turn (until he used them
> up, as they are in a "defense pool" and pools don't refresh until beginning
> of turn.)
>
> I may be wrong. =P (it has been a while since i've judged spell combat. Or
> Gm'ed for SR mages, for that matter. =P)
>
> Ever lovable and always scrappy,
> kawaii
Spell defense dice (as well as reflecting and shielding dice) become
available in the character's:
a)next TURN if they have been used in this turn,
b)next ACTION (character's next initiative pass) if they have not been
used this turn.

To confirm check p79 MiTS, that says so about shielding that is a
version of spell defense.

the wiz

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