spell creation hep, need help making a spell that stops time Options

[bard4life]

hi, a newbie to shadowrun magic, I have find out that you can make you own spells and since there is no spell that affects time so I figure out I will make own. but I need a help making such a spell

first off I know its going to a Manipulation Spell and area-effect spell, I just need help figure out the rest of it.

thanks

btw I get this from watching Heroes, and Hiro.

[Caine Hazen]

Time manipulation is right out RAW wise

[nathanross]

Yeah, Time Stopping is not in the core of the rules, same with Teleportation. I dont there is a way to create a game balanced version of time stopping.

[Shiloh]

Well, if your GM says "okay", you can do anything. But it doesn't fit with Canon: the greatest and oldest of magic using creatures are not reported to have this ability. Remember that Hiro's power is deeply unreliable (it works when it suits the story - that sort of power is terribly easy to spoil a game with as a GM where the PCs are the focus), and SR spells *always* work. They might not acheive enough successes to do what you want, or they might kill you and fail that way, but really Time Stop is just a game breaker in SR4. I'd advise putting the idea down and walking away from it. Or give it a Force x 4 + 6 Drain value, and a threshold of 6 to do anything so you need Magic 6 at least to cast it without overcasting and you're resisting DV 30. But even then, Dragons would be able to do it. And they don't. So there has to be a reason. I'd say it's outside possibility.

[bard4life]

just spoke to my GM, he said no way, its too powerful. you guys are right its a game killer.

[Aaron]

Page 159, Street Magic.

[Shiloh]

You can *kinda* get some of what you're looking for (the drop on your enemies; the ability to act while they cannot) by taking Enhance Reflexes and being good enough to cast it at F6 and get 6 successes...

Page 159, Street Magic.

What's it say (for those of us separated from the book)?

[Aaron]

Yeah, Time Stopping is not in the core of the rules, same with Teleportation.

You can totally teleport in Shadowrun. You just use the B button to open your radial menu, highlight Teleport, and hit the right trigger.

Duh.

[Nightwalker450]

You can totally teleport in Shadowrun. You just use the B button to open your radial menu, highlight Teleport, and hit the right trigger.

Duh.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/dead.gif) *twitch twitch*

[Aaron]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/dead.gif) *twitch twitch*

=i)

[bard4life]

just looked it up

"Sorcery cannot Alter the Fabric of the Space/Time Continuum."
"Spells cannot directly change distance or the passge of time. teleportion and time travel are the holy grails of magic R&D departments the world over, but no one has been able to unravel the knotty problem of affecting space or time with magic. spells can speed up or slow down processes, such as healing or chemical reactions, and allow subjects to move quicky, they cannot dirctly alter time or space"

so thats out, but thanks to everyone who replied.

[b1ffov3rfl0w]

Leaving aside the question of what it means to speed up/slow down "processes" but not "time", I would say that this means it is possible, canonically, to have a spell that speeds up you and some other person or people relative to everything else, by a factor of a lot.

Now, it would be game-breaking if you could use it to, for instance, kill your enemies while they are moving at one millionth of your speed (like Increase Initiative but with hundreds of thousands of extra IPs instead of 4). But what if, for some reason, you could not really interact with them, or move outside of a small area (say, Force meters), or cast other spells? Basically it would let you take a time out, catch your breath, maybe shake off the secondary effects of a taser or some chemicals, and you could have a conversation with the other players (which is what players will do in the middle of a firefight anyway, although normally they shouldn't be allowed to). That wouldn't be so bad. The key is to figure out if a particular use of the spell would be abusive, and then disallowing those uses.

[Cabral]

Hiro's ability to time trime may not be duplicatable in Shadowrun, but some other aspects are, to a degree. For example, I recall him freezing time to study the identity of his father's killer.

If you want to duplicate Hiro's abilities to a degree, make a Mystic Adept and take the Increase Reflexes spell and 3D Memory adept ability from Street Magic.

[Shiloh]

Leaving aside the question of what it means to speed up/slow down "processes" but not "time"...

Pretty important distinction to be able to draw when you're talking about what is and is not possible.

, I would say that this means it is possible, canonically, to have a spell that speeds up you and some other person or people relative to everything else, by a factor of a lot.

Now, it would be game-breaking if you could use it to, for instance, kill your enemies while they are moving at one millionth of your speed (like Increase Initiative but with hundreds of thousands of extra IPs instead of 4).

As you say, that's what Increase Initiative does. Just liek Cyber. It speeds up your metabolic processes so that by some handwavium, you act 4 times as fast as an un-amped person. You might be able to define an AE version of the spell, or a multitarget version, but such things are still working on existing processes.

But what if, for some reason, you could not really interact with them...

What reason? It's an existing process that's being sped up. If *that* could have interacted, why couldn't the accelerated process?

...or move outside of a small area (say, Force meters)...

That's a reasonable restriction. Areas can be affected. But it would affect everyone in the area.

...or cast other spells?...

Again, what mechanism? Why does a fast recovery mean you can't cast, unless a side effect is that you're running so hot you can't concentrate?

The key is to figure out if a particular use of the spell would be abusive, and then disallowing those uses.

Abusive of the spirit of the game, or the cosmology of the setting? I'd argue that the latter is an integral part of the former, and if you want to play with timestop spells you probably aren't looking for a SR game, but something more like Aberrant or Champions.

[Larme]

I think time stopping could be accomplished with the following steps:

a) A quest to get something a free spirit wants so he'll give you some metaplanar information

b) A journey to the metaplanes to ask someone who knows about a time stopping artifact

c) Some kind of epic quest to the center of the earth or the depths of the Amazon or something equally terrifying to retrieve an ancient artifact

d) Maybe another epic quest to find the special magical crystals that power the artifact

e) Figuring out how to actually turn the artifact on without killing everyone, which may require another epic quest for a free spirit or into the metaplanes

f) You can only stop time like once before the artifact shatters because it's very old.

i.e. this couldn't be part of an ordinary game session, it would have to be plot specific. You wouldn't be stopping time just because you wanted to, there would have to be some special reason, like an employer needs to stop time to prevent an ultra-rare magical radioisotope with a half life of a trillionth of a second from disappearing by stopping time's flow around it, which will then enable some cool experiment or something.

[DocTaotsu]

Can you say... ressonance cascade?

Thanks Dr. Freeman, now it's Shadowrun:Half-Life and the best weapon in the game is a dikoted crowbar...
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Lionhearted]

What reason? It's an existing process that's being sped up. If *that* could have interacted, why couldn't the accelerated process?

Again, what mechanism? Why does a fast recovery mean you can't cast, unless a side effect is that you're running so hot you can't concentrate?

If we move into the realms of Quantum theory (Im by no means an expert, correct me if im wrong) your composed by atoms, the atoms are composed by freemoving electrons and a neutron/proton core, around these cores is an enourmous amount of empty space (comparable to a fly in a sport stadium) before you reach the electrons, now the reason you perceive things as solid is the constant exchange of electrons between you and the surrounding world.. if you speed up your body (and thereby your atoms) to the level where everything else seem to be in a standstill it is quite possible that you will simply pass through matter, as the electrons are moving to fast for other electrons to catch up and interact with yours. ergo, you can try to shoot someone, but the speeded electrons in the gun will move to fast for the body of the target to react, passing through him as he was thin air.. same mechanics with kicks or any psychical interaction between you and something not affected by the speed increase. Now as for spells, say that you move in 99,9% percent of the speed of light, the ambivalent mana doesnt move at such speeds and therefor you cannot form a spell in a single pass, its a matter of not only you having time to mentally cast a spell by doing the right preparations and such, the mana needed in the spell actually dont have enough time to be channelled into your body..

sounds reasonable?

[Shiloh]

If we move into the realms of Quantum theory (Im by no means an expert, correct me if im wrong)...

What you're trying to armwave isn't really anything to do with quantum mechanics.

...you're composed [of] atoms, the atoms are composed freemoving electrons and a neutron/proton core...an enourmous amount of empty space...reason you perceive things as solid is the constant exchange of electrons between you and the surrounding world...

Nope. You feel things as solid because the negative charge of the electron shells of the atoms in your fingers repels the negative charge of the electron shells of the atoms in the solid you are touching. An atom cannot interpenetrate an atom because the probability density charges can't pass through each other. <edit> Or if they're given enough energy to do so, the atoms react to become molecules.</edit>

...speed up your body (and thereby your atoms) to the level where everything else seem to be in a standstill it is quite possible that you will simply pass through matter, as the electrons are moving to fast for other electrons to catch up and interact with yours..

Except that charges interact at very high speeds, approaching the speed of light, and you can't accelerate yourself that fast with magic. Speed of thought is about the maximum, even for Astral forms that don't need to worry about Inertia and such pesky physical constraints. And if you did, you'd appear to be standing virtually still by virtue of time dilation, so everything would cancel out anyway. And making everything but you effectively unsolid to you would have difficult effects like sinking into the ground, as well as moving at light speed requiring some serious handwaving to keep you from accelerating off in a random net direction... And if you could hit lightspeed, you'd be more concerned with other matters like how to get to Alpha Centauri...

...mana needed in the spell actually dont have enough time to be channelled into your body...

This could certainly be true, but, as I've pointed out, there are other problems that you'd have to deal with beyond not being able to cast a spell.

sounds reasonable?

You've already guessed my answer, I think (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Kerberos]

If we move into the realms of Quantum theory (Im by no means an expert, correct me if im wrong) your composed by atoms, the atoms are composed by freemoving electrons and a neutron/proton core, around these cores is an enourmous amount of empty space (comparable to a fly in a sport stadium) before you reach the electrons, now the reason you perceive things as solid is the constant exchange of electrons between you and the surrounding world.. if you speed up your body (and thereby your atoms) to the level where everything else seem to be in a standstill it is quite possible that you will simply pass through matter, as the electrons are moving to fast for other electrons to catch up and interact with yours. ergo, you can try to shoot someone, but the speeded electrons in the gun will move to fast for the body of the target to react, passing through him as he was thin air.. same mechanics with kicks or any psychical interaction between you and something not affected by the speed increase. Now as for spells, say that you move in 99,9% percent of the speed of light, the ambivalent mana doesnt move at such speeds and therefor you cannot form a spell in a single pass, its a matter of not only you having time to mentally cast a spell by doing the right preparations and such, the mana needed in the spell actually dont have enough time to be channelled into your body..

sounds reasonable?

Nope, not in the slightest, but it might do for a pseudo-scientific explanation if the players and GM wants to have a time-stop spell.

[Larme]

Guys: magic does not give two craps about quantum mechanics. In fact, I imagine that modern physical models are invalid in the Sixth World, because they absolutely fail to account for magical phenomena. If magic worked on a quantum level, shouldn't it be incredibly easy to make things teleport, which is something magic can't do? Science is great, but applying it directly to Shadowrun is kinda not gonna get you very far (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Lionhearted]

Thanks Shiloh I actually learned something, Feels good to be proved wrong.. ^^
As Kerberos remarks, the players probably know less than physics than you (unless your playing with experts, then all bets are of) and it could serve as a handwaved "explanation" atleast the mana part has some validity to it..

[Shiloh]

Guys: magic does not give two craps about quantum mechanics. In fact, I imagine that modern physical models are invalid in the Sixth World, because they absolutely fail to account for magical phenomena. If magic worked on a quantum level, shouldn't it be incredibly easy to make things teleport, which is something magic can't do? Science is great, but applying it directly to Shadowrun is kinda not gonna get you very far (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

We don't really know *what* magic gives a crap about. It might be quantum effects that are *stopping* magic from teleporting stuff. We do know that magic stuff still interacts with base matter using physical laws (acid bolts are actual acid, lightning bolts are actual electricity etc) though. And what the limits are, currently.

[Lionhearted]

I call for Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, if im not wrong that is the largest obstacle in modern day teleportation research

[Fortune]

Just say no!

[Kerberos]

I call for Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, if im not wrong that is the largest obstacle in modern day teleportation research

I'm fairly confident that there is no such thing as modern teleportation research. Not among serious researchers.