I am having a hard time nailing this down:

Will an Increase (Attribute) Spell boost a character's attribute rating above the augmented maximum?
 

No.  You can never, ever ever, go above the augmented maximum.

Shapechange and increased attribute might work but only because they rearrange your physical stats a bit.

Critters don't list their max augmented level, and there's some debate on the stats that are presented.. are they the average or the max for that species?

I would assume that the stats listed are for the natural maximum.  Shadowrun's attribute system isn't granular enough to make up for the difference in ability between critters.  For all intents and purposes, all critters have the same stats I would say.  That means their augmented maximum is 1.5x the stats listed in the book.

And that's where a shapechange spell throws a bit of confusion into the mix.

A base dog or wolf has 2/3/3/2, so a maxed out mutt is only 3/4/4/3.
A horse on othe other hand, 8/5/5/8, maxes out at 12/7/7/12.

A shape change spell adds one to base stats per hit and there's no mention of any limit. If the natural max is assumed to be the limit then the end result? There's no point in casting such a spell at anything more then force 1 (except to get around background count) for dogs, and force 4 for horses.

I can't think of any other spell at all that's limited in this way, and that says to me that there is something wrong then. Bt... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ft9OXQ03qE Horse destroys a car. Bod of 8? Nah.. I think that horse had a bit more going for it if it could do that to the car and keep going.

I wouldn't really call that destroyed. Probably two boxes of damage.

Hmmmm.. I would probably say 4 or 5. Would you want to try driving it without a windshield? The frame looked ok.. but the reinforcing bar that runs between the front top corners (if it had one) didn't stand a chance.

Insurance companies would look at that and be tempted to check the totaled box.

Okay, durr, I'm stuck in 10-box mode.

So, say that's a standard sedan like the comet. 10 Body, 6 armor, gives it a 13-box condition monitor. So 4-5 boxes is 30-40% of the way to completely undriveable. Seems fair. Let's run the numbers.

Horse has a listed movement speed of 20 meters per combat turn, which is like 15 mph, which is about what I'd guesstimate that horse was moving at from the clip. If we treat it like a ramming attack, then the base DV is Body/2, or 4. That doesn't exceed the vehicle's armor, so it wouldn't take any damage, which is ridiculous because it obviously did. So it'd need a body of at least 12 to do anything. But that's out there too; should a baseline horse be just a hair less tough than a maximally-augmented ork? 20% tougher than an unaugmented-but-max-attribute troll?

However, if the collision occurred at one more meter per turn, it'd bump the DV up to 8. Not clear that the vehicle had stopped completely, so I think there's wiggle room for that in there. Which means a DV of 8, resisted by 16 dice, traded in for 4 hits or rolled for 5 and 1/3. So 3 or 4 boxes of damage in that case. Or 14 dice if it's a subcompact, which means 4 or 5 boxes. Which is roughly in line with your analysis.

So yeah. What were we talking about?

Wether or not the stats listed in the book are actual max, actual base or if there's wiggle room in there.

And if what's in the book are the base stats, then 1.5 of that is a realistic cap.

According to the video's description, the horse only had minor injuries. Can't say the same about the car...

The main arguement I was making is shapechange is one of the rare few spells in the book that has an artifical limit on it's force rating. The other I can think of is Stabalize, with a force higher then the target's overflow boxes is overkill.

For said horse, to go from bod 8 to 12 is a force 4 shapechange, BUT force 5 (assuming you get max successes) doesn't do any more good. In fact it hurts as rain goes up one for no gain.

Shapechange is the only spell in the book like that, which doesn't seem right to me. Ergo... There is a problem, but where exactly?

That isn't the only spell.  Increase Attribute has the same issue as Shapechange, with a twist.  As well as Detox having a target Force of the toxin's DV (what if the DV is 2?).  I'm sure there are more examples, but that's enough to say it isn't alone.

True enough, I stand corrected.

It just felt odd to me to have spells where there's no point to casting them above a certain force level.

No point building a nuke bigger than a few megatons either. :shrug:

There is a point, depending on the situation.  I don't remember the +/- Body limits of Shapechange, but if you were a mega body Troll then you could get more juice out of Shapechange by changing into something really huge with a high force spell.  Like maybe a rhinoceros.  That would actually be awesome, a mega mutant rhino...  Too bad they don't really make armor for those, so it would sort of be an exercise in futility.  You'd get incredible stats, and then you'd get shot to death anyway.  Really, that's true of any critter.  Though Shapechange can boost your attributes, you become an unarmored animal, which means as far as combat goes, you're a sitting duck.  Shapechange is only good for infiltrating, since you can change into an animal that flies, or that nobody will take any notice of.  Changing into a rhino or something would be fun, but actually a lot more dangerous than changing into an ordinary dog or cat.  People see a rampaging rhino and they shoot it.  People see a dog or cat and they don't.

Or pull off a stunt like I did recently with a couple spells and split dice pools.

Shape change + fashion + foreboding = fox shifter turning into an armored dire wolf from hell.

Yea, massive hit and was running with -6's on the dice pools along with the drain damage... but the look on the target's face? WORTH IT. He started spilling the info so fast I thought we had turned on the firehose...

See what happens when you find out your mark is phobic of dogs?

If I could have sustained those spells without the -6 dicepool... that would have been one MEAN wolf to contend with.