I have just purchased Genesys and RoT, and I have a question about magic.

To me there seems to be a real balance discrepancy between the item quality Auto-Fire for weapons, and the Additional Target effect for spells. I have read that many people in SW and Genesys consider the auto-fire rules to be OP (I do not), but the additional target effect seems much more effective.

Let me explain, and hopefully someone can clarify/correct me.

On page 216 of the Genesys Core Rulebook, in the Magic section, the Additional Target effect has varying rules:
"The spell affects one additional target within range of the spell. In addition, after casting the spell, you may spend [1x advantage] to affect one additional target within range of the spell (and may trigger this multiple times, spending [1x advantage] each time)."

This effect costs +1 difficulty for Barrier and Heal or +2 difficulty for Augment, Curse and Dispel.

A similar effect for Conjure has a similar cost as Barrier and Heal, but different description:
"The spell summons one additional item, weapon, or creature. In addition, after casting the spell, you may spend [2x advantage] to summon one additional item, weapon, or creature (and may trigger this multiple times, spending [2x advantage] each time)."

Finally, all of the effects have a similar purpose as the Auto-Fire quality for weapons. Like with Barrier, Heal and Conjure, this quality increases the difficulty of the attack by +1. However it does not automatically add an additional target"
"If the attack hits, the attacker can trigger Auto-fire by spending [2x advantage]. Auto-fire can be triggered multiple times. Each time the attacker triggers Auto-fire, it deals an additional hit to the target...These additional hits can be allocated to the original target, or to other targets within range of the weapon."

The intention is probably to create balance between the various effects. However, the magical effects are all superior to the weapon quality. What is everyone's thoughts on this?

19 hours ago, SatedPsycho said:

However   , the magical effects are all superior to the weapon quality. What is  everyone's  thoughts  on this   ?

I don't think the two rules are really comperable, let alone that one is superior.

Note that Magic Attacks are the only spells actually comperable to a weapon, and they use the Auto-Fire quality to score additional hits. Doing so typically requires a two step increase in difficulty; as a result of only being available as a fringe benefit of the Lightning effect.

In the case of Heal (the next most comperable spell), Additional Target is both better and worse. The plus is that with Additional Target (for heal) you could heal three allies instead of two on the same roll. The minus is that if you were somehow using auto-fire instead that same Heal spell could have healed the same ally twice.

Yeah the key difference is in the targets that may be selected. Additional target can not select the same target multiple times, although if you succeed you automatically effect two targets. Autofire is tough since you have to roll success and advantage to use it but you can hit the same target multiple times.

Then you need to look at what the basic effects are as well, Attack Spell and Autofire are far more powerful than any other Spell, so it makes sense that autofire should be more difficult and less effective