Teleportation spells? Options

[Ol' Scratch]

It should also be pointed out that ordinary physical objects can become astral. Look up the Astral Gateway critter power in Street Magic. The line I'm referring to is: "The spirit can open an astral rift (p. 116), forcing all physical objects within the area to be dual natured..."

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Except that there is already the implication that objects that a person is invested enough in carry a residual aura, so if they do and you allow teleportation to be effective for a character with any degree of cyberware you need to be aware of the possibility of this issue coming up.

It has a signature, not an aura.

If you are going to argue one fairly significant change to how magic functions in the 6th world it is a good idea to come up with a mechanism for this new aspect, and to look at it from multiple angles to see how it will affect your game world

Sure - one change at a time.

and saying what I have quoted here will not be a satisfactory answer at most tables I've played at because it smacks of arbitrary rulings.

Actuallly, if the teleportation has the Mana restriction, it isn't.

It should also be pointed out that ordinary physical objects can become astral. Look up the Astral Gateway critter power in Street Magic. The line I'm referring to is: "The spirit can open an astral rift (p. 116), forcing all physical objects within the area to be dual natured..."

The really funny thing about it is, that while p. 116 claims that astral rifts function similarily, it doesn't mention that detail.
So basically, one can choose if the general rule is missing a pretty big point, or is wrong about rifts functioning similar and the spirit power is special... or the spirit power is wrongly worded. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Draco18s]

Occam's Razor and "taking stuff with you" into the Astral:

Use some common sense. Cyberware, magic items (foci, etc), and similar items come with by default. If you want something more, then use a bit of logic:

1) How important is the object to the character? Ex. A lock of hair for someone they're trying to track: comes with*. A rented vehicle: does not.

2) How large is the object? Fits in my hand: comes with. This suitcase of stolen goods: does not.

3) How technical is the object (aka Object Resistance)? There was a house rule noted above about Cha + Magic vs. OR (you get 3 hits, only OR 3 and lower objects come with you)**

4) Is it easy to hold onto (aka how hard is to to leave behind, assuming you were going to walk)? Clothing: comes with. Guns: do not.***

I figure an object needs to meet at least 3 of these criteria to come with the character traveling astrally (in the sense we're talking about) without needing to ask. GM may decide that an object that would normally come with does in fact not for any reason they can voice (eg. "you forgot to think about your cloths when you shifted, you were so focused on getting your chummer to the hospital fast, so they stayed behind").

*Important to the reason for going astral, the "if I lose this, I lose my magic" geass items, "I've owned it my whole life" items, etc. etc.
**I'm exerting force of personality, that drone absolutely MUST COME WITH ME.
***The one in your smuggling compartment in your arm will, its inside your cyber. The knife stitched into the leg of your pants comes with, it's pretty well attached. Your pistol in your belt holster, that falls off (the hoster itself may or may not come with).

[prionic6]

But you have the problem of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. You could know where all the atoms in your body are and freeze that information, but when 'starting you back up' they would be in different motions, which would mean that your current thought would almost certainly be lost.

-> http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Heisenberg_compensator

[The Jopp]

You want to have real fun?

Create a mechanical plot device teleporter a'la "The Fly" or "Star Trek" teleportation plates which allows for teleportation between two identical devices.

Now for the twist.

The teleportation moves the individual atoms to the receiving end and puts the body together just as any "real" teleporter would - but it doesn't move the astral body.

Magicians suddenly finds themselves on the astral plane and needs to track their body down and mundanes collapse as their astral form is ripped out and then dragged back into the body. mages who get teleported through a ward instantly collapses and is handled as a mundane for teleportation purposes.

...And in between this you and spirits that might..or might not...be close enough for the arriving body to get themselves a new shell...

[Method]

Hmmm interesting.

[Degausser]

Maybe for a bit more info than "you can't because you can't," I'm gonna throw my hat into the ring and try to explain why teleportation doesn't work in Shadowrun.

Most systems (well, a lot of them anyway) actually set down fundaments what MAGIC IS. DND doesn't, really, but most other systems do. In the WhiteWolf game Mage, Magic is the ability to have the caster force his will on all of creation. Thus, teleportation is possible in Mage. J.K. Rowling set down laws for her version of magic, which allowed magic to do anything BUT create (basically, magic was not allowed to make anything new. No new matter, sustenance, data, anything. Read her wiki article.)

In Shadowrun, no matter what your discipline, all magic can do is mess with astral energy (mana) and screw with it (sometimes getting it to interact with the physical plane.) You can mess with someone's aura (mind probe and emotion control) turn astral energy into elemental energy (fireball and lightning bolt) make or unmake flesh (powerbolt and heal) and do a myriad of other things, but all of it has a theme. It's either using astral energy to mess with astral stuff, or changing astral energy into physical energy. But, in Shadowrun, space and time are fixed, and are completely separate from magic.

Now, in shadowrun, there are plenty of mages who have pipe dreams that teleportation could exist, most if it involves spirits. The theory that one could take a physical body, and shove the whole thing into the astral plane, then, have an exit for it somewhere else. (kind of like the inverse of what a spirit does when in manifests.) However, these are mostly pipe dreams and no respected academic in shadowrun believes that it would ever be possible.

[Ol' Scratch]

Uhm, Shadowrun is actually one of the few games that's both very direct about and open to what magic is: Magic is the manipulation of mana as shaped by an individual's will and beliefs. They also give a very specific set of laws for sorcery, though other forms of magic are a little more freewheeling. It's that intent of will and the belief system of the individual that makes it so very open, but at its heart its all the same. A Blood Mage cannot use Sorcery to teleport any more than a Chaos Mage, Druid or Hougan can.

I don't see how you can use the comparisons you selected as proof for why Shadowrun isn't exactly the same. There are rules. Using Sorcery to teleporting is one of them. No amount of wishful thinking on a magicians part will change that. There are alternatives, though, but the desire of so many magicians to come up with a technique combined with the fact that it's not yet possible proves one thing if nothing else: The mana levels just aren't high enough to allow it. Yet. But we know from the Fourth World that such techniques do work. The mana just has to reach the right levels first.

[Karoline]

Are you responding to degausser? That is basically exactly what he said. SR uses a system of rules like those others do, and those rules include (among other things) an inability to affect time/space, thus no teleportation.

Also, I don't see why it is so hard to allow cyberware to teleport but disallow other objects. It's really simple, the passage in the 'teleportation' section goes something like this: Any foci bound to the mage, any gease item, and any item paid for with essence, travel with the mage. Anything else does not.

And blamo, problem solved. No, you can't take your gun, I don't care how many times you've slept with it. Until you make it into a gease item or foci, you can't take it with you. This is almost exactly how shapechange works, so I don't see why there is some huge problem.

Yes an object can have a bit of a residual aura from someone caring for it a bunch (ala sympathetic links) but that is -far- different than something that has had essence or karma paid for it. At that point it is by all rights an extension of that person's aura. It is kind of like the difference between... I don't know, like leaving your fingerprints on something and currently holding a weapon that you've trained for years with in your hand. One is a current extension of your body while the other just has something that can be used to identify you with.

Edit: Oh, and how does turn to goo and petrify break the rules?

Edit2: Because I see no "Magic cannot change matter of one type into another type." rule.

[Ol' Scratch]

Petry and Turn to Goo break the rules of magic by ignoring the "paid for with Essence" rule. You can't target a specific part of a person, such as their implants. Sorcery doesn't distinguish between the two. You either affect the target or you don't. Which, incidently, is why you have to use vision mods that are either natural, magical, or paid for with Essence. It makes them a part of you, not some separate entity.

If sorcery did have such an easy time doing that sort of thing, all kinds of crazy spells would be out there. A "Control Cyberware" or "Deactivate Cyberware" spell, for instance. There'd be spells that could hack commlinks, since you could use it to affect a specific portion of a device just as easily as you could a specific part of a person (albeit with a higher Threshold). An "Eject Clip" spell is another. There's really no limit to the absurdity that would be out there as a result of ignoring that rule and allowing sorcery to handpick what it affects on a target.

Sorcery either affects the target or it doesn't. It's not intelligent. It can't tell the difference between what is and what isn't a natural part of its target. And as far as magic goes, anything you pay for with Essence is a natural part of you.

[Karoline]

Ah, I forgot that they didn't affect your cyberware. It could however be explained as that it only affects organic matter. Just like you could use a 'control soil' spell to pull the dirt out of muddy water, I suppose you could have a 'turn organic matter to goo' spell which would only affect the living tissue of a person. This would explain why cyberware is left behind, but bioware isn't.

[Draco18s]

The issue I have with Turn to Goo is that the barrier rating of the goo is identical to stone (see Turn to Stone).

[Karoline]

The issue I have with Turn to Goo is that the barrier rating of the goo is identical to stone (see Turn to Stone).

Well.. I mean how do you propose injuring a liquid? Pumping it full of bullets really isn't going to do all that much because... well, it is a liquid. You can move it around no problem, but actually injuring a liquid is difficult by conventional means. Did I mention that it is a liquid? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Fuchs]

I'd ban Turn to Goo and Petrify just because they violate the internal consistency.

I'd also ban any teleport because they violate the Shadowrun world and feel, and invalidate a lot of run ideas, and create unneeded headaches for the GM. Travel and smuggling would become far too easy, borders would not mean a thing, and we'd have the dreaded "Scry buff teleport" attack mode from D&D.

ED and Shadowrun magic rules were made for utterly different games, and therefore shouldn't be crossed over. Unless you want to turn Shadowrun into D&D.

[Sixgun_Sage]

I'd ban Turn to Goo and Petrify just because they violate the internal consistency.

I'd also ban any teleport because they violate the Shadowrun world and feel, and invalidate a lot of run ideas, and create unneeded headaches for the GM. Travel and smuggling would become far too easy, borders would not mean a thing, and we'd have the dreaded "Scry buff teleport" attack mode from D&D.

ED and Shadowrun magic rules were made for utterly different games, and therefore shouldn't be crossed over. Unless you want to turn Shadowrun into D&D.

D&D with railguns mind you...

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Teleportation is possible in the Shadowrun universe, it's just no one has managed to develop it yet. But that has more to do with the mana cycle, probably, than a lack of effort.

Of course, it's not teleportation in the way people like to envision it. Instead, it's an advanced metamagic technique associated with astral projection/astral windows in which you take your entire body into the Astral Plane, travel to your destination, then hop out. Ghostwalker's obviously done it and I believe Harlequinn and Ehran have both been seen doing it, too. Though I could be wrong about those stupid elves.

The nice thing about is it that it could be incorporated into the game without too much worry from the Shadowrun point of view. There's all kinds of astral security out there to prevent astral projectors from snooping around and every single one of them would be just as effective against this type of teleportation. And if such a technique were developed, that type of security would be ramped up faster than you can say "overpowered."

It would ruin some of the feel of the game, however, which is why I'm glad it's not out there. But it's certainly possible 1) without becoming overpowered and 2) without breaking the rules of sorcery (which is what those rules are; not rules of magic).

I agree with your theory. If you could "manifest" your physical body into the astral plane, you could travel to another point "instantly" creating a teleport feel. And since it is a travel through astral plane, it is not more game breaking than normally traveling into the astral plane, scrying the place and casting any preemptive spell before physically breaking in. I'll make sure to show this idea to Garou and see if he agrees implementing into our game.

[Maelstrome]

there would still be the problem of casting it as line of sight. cant teleport through walls and such. but using ritual spellcasting for teleport would be powerful.

[Karoline]

there would still be the problem of casting it as line of sight. cant teleport through walls and such. but using ritual spellcasting for teleport would be powerful.

Not talking about casting it, talking about a sort of advanced form of astral projection. Or if it was something cast, it would be a spell that allowed your body to go with you when you astrally projected.

[Ol' Scratch]

It's essentiall Astral Projection Plus. Anywhere you can go as a projecting mage. This technique just drags your meat body with you and instead of materializing, your physical body appears as the destination.

It's very inappropriate for the Sixth World, but it's doable within the confines of the setting's laws of magic. Anyone who discovers it is going to have a world of hurt on them, though, the moment anyone else finds out about it. Every megacorporation with magic R&D, military, major magic group, twisted magician, and possibly even dragon would be hunting them down to learn the secret, and every megacorporation's security department, government agency, etc. will be hunting them down just to kill them in order to eliminate the massive threat it poses.

Could be fun in that way. But it's certainly not something you should expect to gain access to without having the entire world hunting you down.

On a side note, one really nice way to put some kind of limit into it is to force a Background Count to occur at both the departure and destination points equal to the magician's Magic rating - Initiation Grade + Person Brought Along. And that Background Count should have the magician's signature all over it for its duration. Afterall, you're basically ripping apart the thin veil between worlds by doing this, so there should be some major reprecussions involved in doing that.

[Karoline]

+ Person Brought Along.

I don't think this form of teleportation would allow anyone else to come with the mage (or any objects except 'ware, foci, and gease objects) as already discussed.

[Drraagh]

This topic is beginning to sound a lot like the movie Jumper, which, while interesting, was basically just a variation on Nightcrawler's life story. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Draco18s]

Well.. I mean how do you propose injuring a liquid? Pumping it full of bullets really isn't going to do all that much because... well, it is a liquid. You can move it around no problem, but actually injuring a liquid is difficult by conventional means. Did I mention that it is a liquid? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

How do you propose removing any cyberware from the goo'd person? You'd have to penetrate the air-liquid barrier.

[Maelstrome]

Not talking about casting it, talking about a sort of advanced form of astral projection. Or if it was something cast, it would be a spell that allowed your body to go with you when you astrally projected.

i wasnt talking to anyone in specific. just brought up a point in using it as a spell.

[Karoline]

i wasnt talking to anyone in specific. just brought up a point in using it as a spell.

Oh, then yeah, as a spell it would I guess be limited to LOS or material links. That could actually help alot in balancing teleportation. Secure facilities would just have tinted windows to prevent people teleporting into them.

I can also imagine the hilarity that would ensue from teleporting to a person via ritual spellcasting and sympathetic link.

Imagine sitting down to use the restroom and all the sudden a group of heavily armed people pops into the stall with you because they stole some of your hair to get into the place you work.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

It's essentiall Astral Projection Plus. Anywhere you can go as a projecting mage. This technique just drags your meat body with you and instead of materializing, your physical body appears as the destination.

It's very inappropriate for the Sixth World, but it's doable within the confines of the setting's laws of magic. Anyone who discovers it is going to have a world of hurt on them, though, the moment anyone else finds out about it. Every megacorporation with magic R&D, military, major magic group, twisted magician, and possibly even dragon would be hunting them down to learn the secret, and every megacorporation's security department, government agency, etc. will be hunting them down just to kill them in order to eliminate the massive threat it poses.

Could be fun in that way. But it's certainly not something you should expect to gain access to without having the entire world hunting you down.

On a side note, one really nice way to put some kind of limit into it is to force a Background Count to occur at both the departure and destination points equal to the magician's Magic rating - Initiation Grade + Person Brought Along. And that Background Count should have the magician's signature all over it for its duration. Afterall, you're basically ripping apart the thin veil between worlds by doing this, so there should be some major reprecussions involved in doing that.

Well, the only novels I've read from shadowrun was "never deal with a dragon" trilogy (yeah, THAT old). Anyway, as far as I can tell, Ghostwalker was brought along with the Haley comet (or the Haley comet increased the mana level enough for it to break away from its prison). Now, wasn't his soul and body imprisioned when he got out from the big D's rift? That is as much teleport as one can get in SR.
Also, I agree with karoline, I don't think you could be able to "teleport" someone with you.
Now that i think about it, the "teleport" would be a lot like "lifting the veil" from Werewolf, where the Garou could go in and out of Umbra, and "teleporting".