There has to be some comparison because they created martial techniques to balance out spellcasters at higher levels. You can't just say "Because a spell does X damage, the maneuver must do X damage." However, it's certainly sensible to say "These 2 talents which do similar things should be comparable in power, but it can be in different ways."

John

Just avoidance....

This is why we are limiting these talents to Avoidance

Enemy of my Enemy for example..

Ok let me sum up the basic arguments:

its hard to hit with all the spells because we want to apply cover penalties to avoidance and fortitude based spells and its easier to lump discipline spells in with it....

and we did this in the first place to keep things basically even with ranged weapon attacks

but we are only going to make it easier to get around cover penalties for avoidance based spells because its easier to increase avoidance.

the problem is that any ranged or thrown weapon can take the "Precise aim" trick and viola now they ignore cover penalties (and getting more in depth on comparing tricks and techniques starts to compare apples and oranges)
so now ranged weapons are balanced at hitting things easier.

so some possible solutions i see
take the spell adaptations and let them apply to any spell regardless of defense

take the spell adaptations and let them apply to any spell , but the result only targets avoidance
(yes that means enemy of my enemy might target avoidance)

create similar talents for discipline and fortitude (with different costs) in both arcane and divine

While I agree with some of what you're proposing Josh, Precise Aim is a Technique that is a Base Maneuver. This means that while it does remove the penalty for all defenses, it limits what you can do with it. You can't use it with another advanced maneuver, nor use it with 2 other base maneuvers in an advanced maneuver.

The spell version is an adaptation and therefore applies to advanced spells or 2 base spells combined into an advanced spell.

John

@ John, that's exactly the apples and oranges i was referring to

In regards to Arcane Accuracy, I'd rather see separate talents for Fort and Disc.

I agree with Devin. They can be identical, other than the Discipline they target. That would give spellcasters a way to further specialize.

Something like Adaptation: Arcane Barrage (Fortitude) and Adaptation: Arcane Precision (Discipline)? (Just throwing the first words out there that came to mind)

May give Arcane casters the one for Discipline and Divine casters the one for Fortitude?

Pedro it would seem to me that you have more of an issue with the power level of the spells created (Enemy of my Enemy) then how the actual mechanics for casting should work. That's more of a spell design flaw imo then a good basis for how the casting into combat rules should work.

Personally i don't think enemy of my enemy is that bad. Its high strain and speed and often creatures miss each other... and its only for one action. But perhaps that's another thread...

Solution:
I think the talents available should be able to provide the casters a reduction of the -4 penalty to fire into melee for all spells. However what i do propose is that casters do not get the +2 for casting into melee for having a tactical edge. As it makes little sense that they would.

~Tony