 Physical barrier spell, Fluff vs RAW |
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 Sep 5 2007, 04:49 PM
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#1
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 993 Joined: 5-December 05 From: Crying in the wilderness Member No.: 8,047  |
This has been touched on before but it is a rules oddity depending on what your stance you take on the description.
The crux of my point is this: The physical barrier created by the spell is destroyed if penetrated. The RAW of bullets hitting barriers for the sake of "breaking through" doubles the barrier rating. The description for the above RAW is that bullets are good at making little holes and but not big holes. The attempt to "break through" assumes making a 1/2 m hole for someone to crawl through. So does the bullet pass through the barrier ending it, without "breaking through" per RAW? Or does the bullet bounce off the barrier if insufficent to "break through"? Should the bullet ignore the doubling to the barrier rating for penetration due to making small holes? Or finally does the bullet have to "break through" per RAW to end the spell? Currently i am running in my game with the latter. If in doubt my first instinct is to stop my harsh GM gene tooling over my players by strict adherence to the rules. Also this means the barrier spells are worth while. However I am open to revision, with convincing argument. |
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Sep 5 2007, 06:22 PM
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#2
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Target Group: Members Posts: 91 Joined: 19-January 03 From: Near Boston Mass. Member No.: 3,927 |
This came up in a recent game I ran. Teams shaman used P Barrier a lot. She quickly found out that it was of limited use against heavy pistols. As we understood the rules, as soon as the power of the bullet exceeds the barrier rating, the barrier went down. You not trying to break though, your trying to shoot the person on the other side. So a force 6 P Barrier against a 9S heavy pistol will reduce the power of the shot to 3S and then fail. This makes the P Barrier not that effective in a serious fight. But if the force EQUALS the power, the caster can reform it at full strength as an action. Free one if I remember. But to answer your question, the spell desciption seem to claim that the breaking through rules don't apply here. Once you exceed the force of the spell, the spell is over and the attack is reduced by the set amount. If it las less or equal, happy mage. |
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Sep 5 2007, 08:55 PM
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#3
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Target Group: Members Posts: 28 Joined: 14-March 02 Member No.: 2,374 |
I defined "break through" as the point where a 1/2 meter hole would be punched in the barrier if it was non-magical. I reduced the power of the attack by the force of the barrier, if the power was higher than the force the bullets (or whatever) punched through the barrier and damaged the mage (or whatever was behind the barrier). I don't remember if the spell is considered hardened armor or not. If it isn't hardened armor then the mage would still have to resist a 2X (for a heavy pistol it would be a 2M attack modified by the shooter's successes) attack even if the power of the attack is lower than the barrier rating of the spell. If the power of the attack was greater than 2 times force plus 1/2 force, the barrier was destroyed. I'm paraphrasing from the barrier rules (I hope, going by memory here) to put a 1/2 meter hole in a barrier the power of the attack had to be greater than the adjusted barrier rating plus one half the barrier rating. The adjusted barrier rating is equal to 2 times the object's barrier rating. So if my math is correct the little table below shows force of spell and minimum power of an attack to disrupt the spell. I rounded the values down. Force Minimum Power 1 2 2 5 3 7 4 10 5 12 6 15 7 17 8 20 So a heavy pistol will take down spells of force 3 and lower, I believe it's a judgement call as to whether or not ammo type affects the penetration of a magical barrier. Home rule time --- I would either say the barrier isn't hardened and not add in ammo effects (causing the mage to make more damage resistance rolls, but causing the spell to survive many attacks), or that it is hardened and add in ammo attacks (that would allow the mage to not make a lot damage resistance rolls, but would allow a heavy pistol with explosive ammo to disrupt a force 4 barrier, or a HP with APDS to disrupt a force 7 barrier). |
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Sep 6 2007, 12:17 PM
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#4
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 993 Joined: 5-December 05 From: Crying in the wilderness Member No.: 8,047 |
Thanks for the info. Shall ponder.
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Sep 6 2007, 02:58 PM
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#5
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 219 Joined: 26-April 02 From: Emerald City, Oz Member No.: 2,648 |
Has anyone else used the physical barrier spell for anything else, for example as a ramp for cars and bikes to drive over?
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Sep 6 2007, 03:36 PM
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#6
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Target Group: Members Posts: 91 Joined: 13-March 03 From: Bunker Gate 7 [CaTCo Compound] Member No.: 4,248 |
Yeah, one of my players came with this idea. After heated arguments, we found that on the FAQ section on the Shadowrun website:
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Sep 7 2007, 05:25 AM
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#7
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 219 Joined: 26-April 02 From: Emerald City, Oz Member No.: 2,648 |
we figured the opposite. since the barrier spell could (in theory) stop bullets, and the bullet applied immense force to a tiny surface area, then the whole barrier would be able to support a fair weight spread over a larger area.
high school physics was a long time ago for me... |
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Sep 8 2007, 02:18 AM
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#8
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 247 Joined: 28-November 04 Member No.: 6,852 |
I don't know if I'd be willing to drive a car over a kevlar ramp... Just because it stops bullets does not mean it's rigid. That being said, I have had one of my characters create a physical barrier ramp to help the team to climb over a razorwire fence. The GM allowed it, so everything's good. It's really up to the GM's discretion, but I think the FAQ is a good baseline. |
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