Street Magic: Quake Spirit Power, Have they lost their minds?! Options

[Wireknight]

Okay, so, there's this new spirit power, Quake. I understand that it's sort of the Storm power for more earth-based spirits. Seriously, though, what the hell were they thinking? This is one of those "destroy the earth" type powers. The spirit generates an earthquake that hits everything in a radius equal to its Force, in kilometers. The spirit then rolls Magic + Willpower (functionally Force * 2). This determines the magnitude of the quake.

Magnitude represents... well, magnitude. It's not some linear thing where magnitude 4 is twice as potent as magnitude 2, it's a thousand times as potent. It seems worrisome to me that there's a power out there where 6 hits produces energy equivalent to a megaton of TNT being detonated, or 12 hits produces a 160 petaton shockwave that should by all rights split the planet in two (or, if the effect just stops outside the radius, shake everything inside into its component molecules).

This seems like an oversight, or something. Is it supposed to work like that?

[mfb]

well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

[SL James]

To be fair, that would be a pretty awesome sight to see everything in a 12km radius reduced to their component atoms.

And I mean, Hell, it's not like there are people who would actively seek to conjure a spirit that could literally vaporize most of the city of Washington, DC (being only 177 sq. km) the Federal District of Columbia, and all of Washington. The one time it would pay to live in the fringes of Southeast on the border of PGC.

This post has been edited by SL James: Aug 12 2006, 08:30 AM

[Samaels Ghost]

Since the Earth is alive, I'm sure it can withstand actual damage to itself. The damage is only really relivant to the city that rests on top of it.

[WhiskeyMac]

How many times do you expect someone to pull out a Force 10 spirit AND get 16 hits to make that petaton blast happen? I would just GM rule it to make it a bit weaker than it actually is. If the rules lawyer speaks up, peg him in the head with a dice and say that it was a typo and will be fixed in the errata :grinbig:

[SL James]

Heh.

Wireknight is the Rules Lawyer.

Actually, considering that a Force 6 spirit had 6 Edge dice, I could easily see someone just rerolling until they get hits on all 12 of their dice rolled.

Even 10 or 11 hits would be, well, bad. I mean, the quake that caused the 2004 tsunami was a 9.1, and it changed gravity in the southern hemisphere and made the day shorter because it jostled the Earth slightly off orbit.

BTW, I love the example given on Wikipedia for a 10: "estimate for a 10 km rocky bolide [extraterrestrial body] impacting at 25 km/s."

[knasser]

[SL James]

[knasser]

Okay okay - I'm trying to type this before someone else replies. I will probably have about eight posts explaining how I'm wrong by the time I hit post, though.

It's Magic + Willpower, so effectively Force x 2. That does make Quake more formidable than I thought. Still, your Force 6 will average 4 hits which means driving tests for vehicles and some damage to buildings. The drain is likely to knock your character flat and it has little combat effectiveness. In a heavily built up area like Seattle with big solid buildings, I wouldn't expect Quake to be a major issue. Edge would take the hits up to 6 on average. That's still not collapsing buildings though it will cause a lot of damage.

Expect any magician doing this to be a major target of the government. But it's no more devastating than an individual can pull of with explosives, really. You still need a Force 10/11 Great Form to be reliably levelling buildings.

[knasser]

[SL James]

Hell, if I was a Force 11 free spirit I'd be collapsing buildings for fun.

[SL James]

[Slithery D]

For those who don't know, invoking drain is binding drain X 1.5, or 3 DV per hit by the spirit. For a Force 6 you're averaging DV 12, and if it gets lucky and scores 6 hits...

Momma said knock you out.

[knasser]

[SL James]

And just think, I don't exist as an extradimensional manifestation of pure evil intent on destroying human life. In SR, those things are pretty common.

[Samaels Ghost]

[knasser]

[Samaels Ghost]

That's a scary prospect. Thank the spirits magic can't be cast through the net...

[LilithTaveril]

[SL James]

[Wireknight]

[Wireknight]

[Frag-o Delux]

And Seattle would be a great place to set one off. The USGS has mapped up to 6 fault lines in the Pudget Sound area. There has been evidence of surface ruptures do to these fault lines because of how the faults flow into different plates, meanin gthose cool looking movie earthquake effects where large chunks of land jut up out of the ground splintering downt eh fault lines. There are also large spots of fresh uncompacted soil deposits in the area. Soft soil amplifies ground shake. A small earthquake then become large because of the shake. When the loose soil shakes is becomes less dense and water like, the buildings will then sink into the ground also. :) The fault lines being that close together could also prolong the shake. Instead of having a 5 or 10 second shake it could be 20+ seconds. Seattle is also just now starting to spot their short comings in earthquake readiness, according to the USGS.

You could say by 2070 they would be up to code, but looking at SR history, I doubt it, other then corporate spots or wealthy spots.

[Frag-o Delux]

Curious, can the spirit choose where to focus the epicenter of the quake? I mean if you called it on the 30th floor of a high rise could you center it there? I dont think buildings are designed for an earthquake in the bathroom of room 3012. Or better yet an airplane, like in Under siege 2. LOL

Question to any one that may know. When they rate a building that can withstand x.x on the Richter scale, do they meanif the building is at the epicenter or do they mean close to the epicenter?

[knasser]

[QUOTE=Wireknight,Aug 12 2006, 03:01 AM]
And I don't buy that "magnitude means something different in Shadowrun than it does in real life". Maybe if it said "compare the results of this test to the table on page X", but so long as it actually uses the term "magnitude", I believe that the table is meant to describe the effects of earthquakes of that magnitude, and is pretty inaccurate.[/QUOTE]

It doesn't say "compare the results to the table on pg. X", it says "compare them to the results on pg. 101." The rules are very clear about the results of this power and you would rather overthrow all that explicit rules description because the word magnitude which commonly means the greatness or extent of something was used in the description. Richter scale points indicate a logarithmic progression. No where in the text does it describe this power in terms of richter points or suggest that hits on the role each nudge you up one. I think you must have already decided that the power is broken to think this. And it's no big deal to say that magnitude doesn't mean points on the richter scale. There - I said it. The brokeness is gone. :)

[QUOTE=Wireknight,Aug 12 2006, 03:01 AM]That's the beauty of how broken this is. It only needs to happen once.[/QUOTE]

What's the problem with that? It's a plot point. A force 6 isn't going to do anything much more than make money for plasterers and construction companies. You'd need a Force 11 to pull off the sort of destruction that you're hinting at. And the drain from that could easily kill someone who tried to invoke such a beast. That's 11 physical drain as an average. 18 physical drain would be statistically likely. If a player wants to risk 50:50 chance of death to pull this off, then there are plenty of other ways they reek havoc in a suicide run, after all.

And if they manage to survive, then it's still the criminal equivalent of filming yourself murdering people and posting the trid to Lone Star. You're going to make major enemies doing this. Everyone will be baying for your head from the corps that have to foot the bill to the triad chief that found his priceless Ming vase smashed. I just don't see any player attempting this.

Which leaves NPCs, free Earth elementals, etc. And that's a plot point in the GM's hands, so it's a good thing.

[quote]Frag-O-Delux[/quote] And Seattle would be a great place to set one off. The USGS has mapped up to 6 fault lines in the Pudget Sound area.[/quote]

The way the power is phrased it explicitly bases the magnitude on the power of the spirit rather than the environment. It even says that areas prone to earthquakes will be less affected because buildings are engineered to withstand them.

I see the Quake power as being useful to players in odd circumstances rather than a mass tool of destruction. I would use it in say a mountain setting for avalanches, to intimidate people (very effective) or perhaps in a car chase down a long freeway - setting it off would bring a lot of cars to a halt and cause a gridlock. That sort of thing.