New Adept Powers, What non-canon powers do you use? Options

[mfb]

actually, it does have to happen. you can only cast where you've got LOS. i mean, yeah, your point of aim can be on your target--but you can't set your fireball off in him or behind him.

and the how is simple. spells create signatures in the astral plane; the flames and heat created by a flame aura spell are marked with this signature.

[Siege]

It won't be a widely purchased power to be sure.

However, take off the "hardened" bonus and leave it at .5/level. Element must be specified at time of purchase.

I would imagine some characters will purchase it for a specialty schtick.

-Siege

[Jason Farlander]

This is, quite simply the lamest discussion I've read in quite a while. You dont need to know the physics of how a powerbolt causes damage to something, or what, exactly, makes the car float up in the air when you cast levitate, or how petrify manages to transform organic material into limestone, or how toxic wave generates gallons and gallons of sufficiently concentrated acid as to melt people, armor, and equipment to sludge instantaneously, or how a vampire can regenerate any and all damage inflicted on his person in 3 (!) seconds, no matter how much overflow is generated...

But flame aura... (oh no! the most powerful spell in the game!) makes absolutely no sense to you?

I'm sorry, but magic simply does crazy/impossible things. I dont see why you're willing to accept the fact that magic bends the rules of reality in far more ridiculous ways, but not in this relatively tame way.

[Austere Emancipa...]

Okay. So the Flame Aura spell does at least the following things:
1) It creates/conjures/whatever flames like the spell description says.
2) It keeps track of all heat that is heading towards the subject behind the aura, checks the astral signature of said heat, and deflects it away from the subject if it has the astral signature of the spell.

That's sort of OK. I'll just replace 2) with "It deflects all heat heading towards the subject behind the aura away from the subject." and increase the Drain.

A self-defense elemental area-effect spell would have a Drain Code of +1(DL-2). Must-have for melee-mages! 6D elemental damage for 4M Drain! [Edit]Oops! Not quite. It would be at least +1(DL-1), and I'm not even sure if doing that is legal with the spell design rules.[/Edit]

Do Adept Powers have astral signatures?

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Feb 5 2004, 10:38 PM

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Jason Farlander]

Ive always simply thought that elemental manipulations dont really create true elemental effects. A good example of this is that there is no acid that could do the things toxic wave is capable of doing. Furthermore, elemental manipulations still have to beat out object resistance values -- something that, say, a flamethrower or tesla coil would not have to do.

Rather, my interpretation is that elemental manipulations focus magical energy in a way that models how the caster things a high-powered version of the real energy/material should act. Acid melts things. Fire burns things and causes explosives to explode. Lightning fries electronics. These are all modeled not on the basis of the real creation of true lighting, fire, or acid, but on the basis that the spells do what the spell designer expects such things to do.

Hence, I dont have the problem with trying to figure out exactly how the spells work. They simply do. Now... this is certainly not a canon interpretation, except that it allows me to accept the canon ways in which magic functions without altering it on the basis that it doesnt make sense to me. I think it has a certain elegance to it as well.

[Jason Farlander]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[mfb]

the spell doesn't have to track all the heat coming at the subject. it just has to track the signature of the spell itself--keep that from contacting the subject, and you're automatically keeping away the heat and flame. as for adept powers, i imagine they have an astral presence of some sort, whether or not it's a lasting signature.

and no, your bastardized self-only effect isn't legal within the rules--or, rather, it is, but most mages aren't interested in fireballs which can only affect themselves. that's why i talked about flipping the 'self only' mod, to make the spell harder to cast. i think a self-defense fireball is just fine at +2(Dmg Level +2).

[Austere Emancipa...]

[phelious fogg]

[Austere Emancipa...]

Jason Farlander's approach to magical elemental effects seeming ever more attractive...

I'll try and make amends for all the pointless crap I've been spouting lately, and answer the original question that begun all this.

[Drain Brain]

I kinda think you guys missed my point and turned what was left of it into an arguement... :please:

Oh well...

I hope somebody got it! :P

[Austere Emancipa...]

I'm pretty sure I made up all the crap from ground up. I'm good at making up crap, worse at adapting good things to crap (although I'm quite capable of that, too).

Or in other words: I never really had any trouble with spells, adept powers or any other effects that only have the appearance of something, like flames. Personally, I think I got it. And now I got something else, too.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Feb 6 2004, 12:22 AM

[mfb]

silly rabbit, all spells are LOS, even Detection (you're casting the spell on yourself, not on the things you're trying to detect).

[Austere Emancipa...]

I'm not really sure what you mean, but I was talking of LOS in the sense that it appears as a Drain Modifier on p. 56 of MitS in Spell Design/Magical Skills.

[mfb]

i don't have my book on me atm, but i'm fairly sure that modifier applies only to Health spells (which are, normally, Touch-range).

[Jason Farlander]

[Austere Emancipa...]

You are absolutely correct, which is why the Touch Drain modifier applies to all other spells but not Health. And the Caster Only modifier includes the Touch Range modifier.

Which got me thinking: Why does the Caster Only modifier give -3 Drain Levels for Health spells, if they are assumed to have the Touch range already? And why aren't there any Caster Only spells in any of the books -- is the modifier that broken?

Note: I said "in the sense that it appears blah blah". Caster Only is a modifier available for Detection, Health and Manipulation spells. Reading it through again, the Area Spell modifier does not make any mention of the spell having to be LOS Range to begin with, and Touch Range doesn't preclude Area. So, uhh, yeah, a Caster Only Area Spell would be legal. A Fireball centered on the caster would have the +1(DL-1) Drain I mentioned before.

Still, the fact that all non-Detection Area spells in any of the books are LOS(A) implies to me that Area requires a spell to be LOS Range.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Feb 6 2004, 02:10 AM

[mfb]

Caster Only spells aren't in the books because the book spells are meant to be generalized. you can take just about any spell in there and make it caster only, just by knocking off three levels of drain.

and yeah, that's true--you could make an AE spell that's touch only. if you want to disinclude yourself from its effects, i'd make a new drain modifier:

Caster Excluded (+3 Drain Level): caster is unaffected by the effects of the spell. can be added to any Area Effect spell.

[Austere Emancipa...]

Why'd that be so hard for an area spell if it's easy enough to be insignificant for other spells? (And I'm not looking for an argument here, I'm probably just missing something, but I can't think of it on my own right now.)

[mfb]

well, my explanation is that by excluding yourself from an area-effect spell, you've doubled the complexity of that spell. with a single-target spell, like flame aura, you've got one target--the subject. the spell 'decides' who to affect based on whether they are or are not the subject of the spell--simple binary.

with a fireball, the 'subject' of the spell is the point of aim. if you want to make yourself immune to your spell, you're introducing a new subject--yourself.

[Austere Emancipa...]

Okay. There's something there that troubles me slightly. However, I cannot tell what it is, and any explanation on the matter that I could come up with had obvious faults, so if it comes up, I'll use something similar to your explanation, but perhaps using +2 instead of +3 DL.

[Kagetenshi]