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Dayhawk
post Dec 31 2007, 10:44 PM
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So I have a player who has initiated to sustain spells. So dice penalty from that.

He over cast Levitate at 12 and is asking about the damage certain objects would do.

The plan is to fly up in the air and hurl orbiting spheres at enemies.

It seems in the rules he can send objects at enemies using the fling spell rules. So in this case it would be 12 kilograms.

Then the debate about velocity, weight and damage started.

I figured I would ask to see what everyone else had done because this can't be the first time this has come up.

Thanks for any help.
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Aaron
post Jan 1 2008, 06:41 PM
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Incidentally, by that method, you'd need to get that pinball up to about 53 m/s to be solidly in the 1P range, or 38 m/s if your GM is willing to round up.
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Fortune
post Jan 1 2008, 06:56 PM
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How much force would be needed to break a paintball (or other capsule-type ball) against an object or person?
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Red
post Jan 1 2008, 07:36 PM
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QUOTE (Aaron @ Jan 1 2008, 01:33 PM)
QUOTE (The Jopp @ Jan 1 2008, 06:49 AM)
At force 12 with 6 successes that ball would hit you at 68 meters per combat turn, that's for every 3 seconds.

Unless my math is all wonky from partying all night, 12 x 6 is 72. That makes it 24 m/s. (side note: NFL quarterbacks can throw passes over 30 m/s, and pitchers in major league baseball games routinely throws pitches that travel at over 40 m/s.)

Your average pinball ball, a 1-1/16 inch steel sphere, is about 200 grams (or 0.2 kg if we want to stay with SI units).

I'm going to use the AK-97 and pretend it has the same firing characteristics as an AK-101, and just has more electronics and stuff. It fires a 5.56x45mm NATO round that has a mass of 4 grams, about 1/50 of the pinball we're tossing at 24 m/s. Its muzzle velocity is 920 m/s, about 38 times the speed of our pinball (yes, I know that the bullet will slow down after leaving the barrel of the weapon, but the damage for a firearm in SR4 is the same at point-blank and extreme ranges, so I'm not going to bother calculating it).

Given our kinetic energy definition of (0.5)(m)(v^2), we can figure out the ratio of bullet damage to pinball damage. Drop the 0.5, we don't need it. The difference in mass will increase comparative damage of the pinball by a factor of 50. However, the (vastly) slower pinball will reduce the total energy by a factor of 38^2, or 1444. So a pinball traveling at 24 m/s will have the same damage as an AK-97 times 50/1444, or a damage code of around (0.2)P.

Feel free to debate my methodology; I just woke up, after all. But I'd like to think the math is solid.

I think your math is solid, but it makes certain assumptions about SR4 damage that aren't necessarily true. I.E. that damage is linearly proportional to the kinetic energy (or mass, or momentum, or whatever a given equation uses) delivered to the target. I like the expression "units of oomph."

Take a heavy pistol, and an assault rifle. Assault rifles are 6/-1 while heavy pistols are 5/-1. I'm quite sure that the kinetic energy (or whatever unit of oomph a given equation is using) of the heavy pistol isn't 5/6 of that of the assault rifle. And I'm quite certain that the difference isn't linear for other weapon steps.

assault rifle -> sniper rifle
sniper rifle -> assault cannon
assault cannon -> rocket
etc...

Of course, then you step into burst fire, automatic fire, and double tapping with simple actions. And then the whole idea bursts into confetti. It's just really hard to use math for this sort of thing in SR4. Often the best you can do is find precedence for something conceptually similar.

This post has been edited by Red: Jan 1 2008, 07:39 PM
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Aaron
post Jan 1 2008, 07:38 PM
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QUOTE (Fortune @ Jan 1 2008, 01:56 PM)
How much force would be needed to break a paintball (or other capsule-type ball) against an object or person?

According to industry standards, the maximum safe velocity is 90 m/s. Most manufacturers stay around 85 m/s. Of course, there are containers more breakable than paintballs.

And may I say, I like how you think.
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Whipstitch
post Jan 1 2008, 07:39 PM
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Holy hell, us dumpshockers really CAN derail anything into a gun thread. I'm really impressed this time mostly because all of the effort that went into derailing it into a whale launching thread was swept aside so easily.
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Red
post Jan 1 2008, 07:44 PM
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QUOTE (Whipstitch)
Holy hell, us dumpshockers really CAN derail anything into a gun thread. I'm really impressed this time mostly because all of the effort that went into derailing it into a whale launching thread was swept aside so easily.

Yes. Yes we can.
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Aaron
post Jan 1 2008, 08:22 PM
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QUOTE (Red)
I think your math is solid, but it makes certain assumptions about SR4 damage that aren't necessarily true. I.E. that damage is linearly proportional to the kinetic energy (or mass, or momentum, or whatever a given equation uses) delivered to the target. I like the expression "units of oomph."

Take a heavy pistol, and an assault rifle. Assault rifles are 6/-1 while heavy pistols are 5/-1. I'm quite sure that the kinetic energy (or whatever unit of oomph a given equation is using) of the heavy pistol isn't 5/6 of that of the assault rifle. And I'm quite certain that the difference isn't linear for other weapon steps.

Possibly. It can be worked out, though, easily enough. Just do what I did above with a couple other weapons and compare.
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Aaron
post Jan 1 2008, 08:24 PM
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QUOTE (Whipstitch)
Holy hell, us dumpshockers really CAN derail anything into a gun thread.

Actually, I was going to go with a bow with a 70-pound draw, but it occurred to me that there are far more variables involved than with a firearm.
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Demerzel
post Jan 1 2008, 08:27 PM
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QUOTE (Abbandon)
Moving a sustained spell is a complex action so yeah you could make stuff whiz around 1-4 times per turn.

I'd go with a handful of bb's and mess stuff up magneto style hehe.

1) The complex action you're referring to is moving the area of an AoE spell, I'm not sure it applies.

2) To use levitate on 100 bb's you'd have to cast 100 levitates... I'm thinking that's a tad drain prohibitive.
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Riley37
post Jan 2 2008, 11:10 AM
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I'm wary of Levitate being strong enough to hurl slugs (or any other inert projectile) hard enough to do damage comparable with Powerbolt.

I'm intrigued by a mage using Levitate to deliver something that's dangerous in other ways, such as monowire, Stick&Shock, tranquilizer patches, poison darts, or hellhounds strapped to buzz-saw blades. Or, going with the classics, grenades; the ability to hurl a grenade around a corner could be quite useful in certain circumstances. With enough fine control, Levitate replaces Airburst Link - when the grenade gets to the desired point, activate it for instant detonation. Scale up to a satchel charge, say 12+ kilos of industrial explosive, as Force and your budget allow.

My preferred use of Magic Fingers on grenades, though, is to sneakily obtain LOS on enemies, and pull the pins of *their* grenades. Effectively like firing a grenade launcher at them from ambush, but arguably less revealing of the attacker's position, and costs Drain instead of using ammo.
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Mercer
post Jan 2 2008, 11:19 AM
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I remember one merc-style run where the group was reduced to making football-sized bombs of C4 or C12, and Levitating them across an empty field to blow holes in a building. It went okay.
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Ryu
post Jan 2 2008, 11:55 AM
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It has not happened in our game, but it seems to be a pretty good combat spell.

I´m not wary of the damage potential, but more of the ability to work around any kind of defense roll by attacking enemies that are facing the mage from behind. This could be fixed somewhat by making the spell touch-range. Plus I´d use object resistance as threshold for the attack in order to encourage learning Fling (changed to Touch all the same).

There could be a high-drain LOS-version of Levitate, but for a +1 mod it does too much right now.
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Fortune
post Jan 2 2008, 02:14 PM
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QUOTE (Riley37)
My preferred use of Magic Fingers on grenades, though, is to sneakily obtain LOS on enemies, and pull the pins of *their* grenades.

Which is why I just rule that in 50 or 60 years, with the advancement of technology and the advent of just that very magical battlefield tactic that pin activation is not standard issue for grenades in Shadowrun.
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kzt
post Jan 2 2008, 03:01 PM
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People who actually carry grenades (who are not idiots, or allow idiots to work for them) keep the spoon taped down and the grenade in a pouch that covers the pin and spoon completely. This requires the grenade to be removed from the pouch to have enough space for the spoon to move one the tape is off, and the tape can't be removed until the grenade is removed from the pouch.
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Konsaki
post Jan 2 2008, 03:03 PM
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And that's why it takes a compex action to ready a grenade... or it would in that case.
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kzt
post Jan 2 2008, 03:12 PM
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Yup. It's the easiest weapon with which an infantryman can accidentally kill himself and his fire team. People try to avoid this. It's also, from the one time I actually threw a live frag grenade, rather difficult to casually pull the pin. It takes a pretty darn hard pull and twist to straighten it and remove it. Again, by design.
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Jhaiisiin
post Jan 2 2008, 06:34 PM
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QUOTE
2) To use levitate on 100 bb's you'd have to cast 100 levitates... I'm thinking that's a tad drain prohibitive.

Or use the spell design rules to make an area effect LOS spell that's restricted to voluntary targets only. The BB's can't say no, so they're affected, and you just choose not to be, and boom, 100 bb's all floating happily for manageable drain.
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Stahlseele
post Jan 2 2008, 06:46 PM
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QUOTE
The BB's can't say no

so they are consenting if they are not opposing? O.o
usually, for things NOT ALIVE you just use treshold for non living things and they get no spell resistance if that is beaten, if i am not mistaken O.o
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Whipstitch
post Jan 2 2008, 07:05 PM
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How else are you going to "activate" a grenade if you don't have a pin or some other physical mechanism? I wouldn't really feel comfortable trading "Mages can kill me with Magic Fingers" for "Hackers can set off the ordnance I'm carrying from the comfort of their living room". I guess maybe grenades could be compatible with skinlinks or something, but it's still starting to hit me as needlessly ornate. I still prefer kzt's method of simply having your grenades buttoned down in your kit.
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Jhaiisiin
post Jan 2 2008, 07:08 PM
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Bah, make the grenade have a thumb print scanner that is preloaded by the local armory tech with acceptable fingerprints (read: on duty security personnel). No wireless, and can't be changed in the field. Then neither magic fingers nor hackers are an issue. Of course, control actions on the other hand...
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Moon-Hawk
post Jan 2 2008, 07:12 PM
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QUOTE (Whipstitch)
How else are you going to "activate" a grenade if you don't have a pin or some other physical mechanism? I wouldn't really feel comfortable trading "Mages can kill me with Magic Fingers" for "Hackers can set off the ordnance sitting in my kit from the comfort of their living room".

Pulling the pin supplies power to the wireless radio. The grenade was subscribed to the soldiers PAN ahead of time. It may or may not be skinlink only, depending on security required. The mental command can then set the fuse for a desired amount of time or (if not using skinlink) simply detonated with a mental command after being set/thrown.

It can't be hacked ahead of time, because it's not on. Even if a mage could pull the pin, that would only make it available to be hacked, but the very first thing it would do would be to alert the user that it was armed, so the hacker had better be darn quick. It doesn't really take any more time to use than any other grenade (possibly an extra free action, possibly not depending on how it is configured), but you add mountains of functionality.

At least, that's generally how I figure "modern" grenades work in my game. Some people still use old army surplus, but with things like magic fingers they tend to be more of a liability.
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knasser
post Jan 2 2008, 07:26 PM
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I knew this thread was out there somewhere.

This has been all been done before, albeit in a slightly unusual manner. :D
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Dayhawk
post Jan 2 2008, 08:07 PM
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OK so the heart of this is the fact that Levitate is a Sustaining spell which he can sustain for free as long as it doesn't get dropped by a ward or whatever.

Because of this he used edge and cast the spell 3 times until he got 11 successes. He was hurt by the drain but since it was downtime, it ended up not being an issue.

Now he has a giant sphere weighing 12 kilo's at the ready. It's dense material so its not that large for the weight. About the size of a softball.

I have ruled that the range he can use it in a turn is a total of 132 meters. It is a complex action and so he end up getting 3 uses per turn. (Again as long as the total distance moved is less then 132 meters).

This comes to 44 m/s.

The rules say it is stun damage unless the GM agree's its otherwise and at this moment I am sticking with Stun.

So how much damage would make sense for a 12 Kilo object (~26 pounds) moving at 44 m/s (98 mph)?

My personal belief is that this should never had been allowed with a Sustained spell. But its in the book so...
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kzt
post Jan 2 2008, 08:29 PM
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I don't know. How much damage would you expect from having a 26 pound object fall onto your head from 300 feet up? :dead:
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knasser
post Jan 2 2008, 08:46 PM
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QUOTE (Dayhawk @ Jan 2 2008, 08:07 PM)
My personal belief is that this should never had been allowed with a Sustained spell. But its in the book so...


What's interesting to me is that you allow the character to sustain the spell for what is obviously quite a long time, if the player cast it during down time and has since healed the damage. There's nothing that specifically limits this in the game, but I would say anything that causes a -2 dice pool penalty has to be considered to be some effort or distraction. It might not be a problem within a run, but I would think that sustaining a spell for days would at the very least be like enduring a constant headache. If it's on a sustaining focus, then no matter, but I'm just curious how much allowance you make because you didn't specify one.

At any rate, how much damage - it's probably quite a bit but you have to consider how accurately the target is struck. After all, getting whacked in the neck with a katana is nasty, but the weapon still only does Str/2+3P. That's because getting hit specifically in the neck is the result of extra hits on the attack roll. Just because we imagine a lead ball dropping on someone's head, doesn't mean that this is what the weapon does. And the speed of this ball might seem a lot (is a lot), but is it more than a swinging club?
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