Using a Spirit's Movement Power on Aircraft, How fast is too fast? Options

[Emeraldknite]

Um... That is the published max cruising speed. Believe me it went faster. If you believe the published maxes then an aircraft carrier can only do about 40 knots max however I have personally seen them go much faster.

As for the hot-sim rigging, it should not be a problem because you are operating at the speed of thought for the commands. Should be just normal tests.

I agree

I have personally seen the USS Theodore Roosevelt cruise up along side my ship easily at 50+ knots. I wasn't in CIC at the time but I was on the bridge and we were pulling like 30 knots and it wasn't long from the time they were spotted on the horizon till the time they pulled up.

I remember looking at the various Jane's encyclopedias at some of the "published" Speeds. Talk about low balling.

[Yerameyahu]

I thought it already had a built-in Body limit based on Force? Just cap it as a house rule, or something.

[HappyDaze]

I agree

Really? It seems to me that you're taking the opposing stance.

[HappyDaze]

Yeah, sorry, but no.

The entire point of the power is to magically enhance your speed and everything related to it. If it was an instant death trap, there'd be no point to the power; metahumans, bikes, and cars aren't meant to travel at those crazy speeds either, so why only pick on aircraft? People coming up with all this silliness, instead of just limiting the effect of the power to metahumans or small/light vehicles if they really see it as a problem, is pretty damn lame.

If it really does enhance "everything related to [speed]" then it does become the "instant death trap" that you say you don't want. This is why I insist that the only thing that changes is how much time it takes you to cover the distance. All other bits of physics still treat the subject as if they were moving at their original unaffected speed.

[Ol' Scratch]

"Everything related" includes being able to acclimate to the speed change, maneuvering just fine and dandy, stopping just as easily as ever, and etc.

[HappyDaze]

That would have the same effect as saying that all effects are based on the unaffected speed, yes?

[pbangarth]

"Everything related" includes being able to acclimate to the speed change, maneuvering just fine and dandy, stopping just as easily as ever, and etc.

Where do you find "everything related" in the following power description?

Movement
Type: P • Action: Complex • Range: LOS • Duration: Sustained
The critter may increase or decrease the subject’s movement rate
within the terrain it controls. Multiply or divide the target’s movement
rate by the spirit or critter’s Magic.
This power has its limits. If the Body of the target exceeds the critter’s
Magic, reduce the Movement multiplier by half. If the Body of the
target exceeds Magic x 2 then Movement has no effect.

The only thing the text says the power affects is movement rate. Nothing here says you can't screw up and drive that empowered motorcycle so fast the wheels come off.

[Ol' Scratch]

I use this thing called a "brain." As opposed to being a total dumbass and just trying to find idiotic reasons to come up with equally idiotic reasons to be a dick to players.

[Ol' Scratch]

I use this thing called a "brain." As opposed to being a total dumbass and just trying to find idiotic reasons to come up with equally idiotic reasons to be a dick to players.

[forgarn]

I agree

I have personally seen the USS Theodore Roosevelt cruise up along side my ship easily at 50+ knots. I wasn't in CIC at the time but I was on the bridge and we were pulling like 30 knots and it wasn't long from the time they were spotted on the horizon till the time they pulled up.

I remember looking at the various Jane's encyclopedias at some of the "published" Speeds. Talk about low balling.

Yeah, same here. Was pulling a "high speed run" and doing 35 knots (CG-26 class cruiser) and had the USS JFK pass us like we were standing still.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

SR2 and SR4A just describe the change is speed. SR3 add a bit including "Depending on the situation, this change in speed may call for a Crash or Stress Test."

So I would say that the power does not aid the driver/pilot, and that ground (or close to ground) movement would be exceedingly difficult if the terrain is at all restricted.

Having said that, if a spirit was also using Guard (which prevents accidents and glitches) on the driver/pilot, than I would probably just ignore such complications.

Guard prevents the Accident Power and negates glitches... but if you need 4 threshold, and you do not reach that threshold, you are still just as dead from the 2400mph impact...

as for multiplying speed... I would multiple the threshold equal to the speed multiplier provided by the Spirit... especially at ground levels. For high Flying and straight movement, extreme high speeds make little difference, but closer to the ground, things matter a great deal... there is a reason that they test those ultra-fast cars on the salt flats... there is nothing to hit...

Just because you go faster, does not mean that everything else stays equal to what it was... at those speeds, on ground levels, you do not have enough reaction time to do anything... by the time you see it, it is way to late to react to it...

Just Sayin'...

Keep the Faith

[HappyDaze]

Well TJ, I agree with you on the reaction time part - because it deals with time - but not on the impact being based off of the increased (power-adjusted) speed. If it was based on such, then humans trying to run at x5 their running speeds would blow out their joints in short order, and the power would be useless as well as requiring so many houserules to account for tolerances to be a nightmare.

[koogco]

The power relates to the base speed of a "subject", that speed is usually the "safe movement speed" for something (requiring vehicle tests or sprint tests to move faster) This indicates that its safe to move at the rate given.
However, that would only apply to situations with no obstacles. just like you cant drive your 200km/h car around tight turns at full speed, neither can you do so with movement power on it. So, by the rules, you would get the usual terrain tresholds and so on. But avoiding unforseen obstacles would yeld much highers tresholds.
As a GM, i would probably increase the terrain treshold by some amount due to the speed, unless the vehicle was able to move in a straight line.

As for the G forces inside a vehicle affected by movement: If the power just applied to the speed of the "shell", you would knockout or kill anyone abord a vehicle the moment it was used, if it is indeed meant to be used on vehicles (a completely different discussion, as its not directly emphasised in the description of the power) then it would effect "the vehicle and contents". otherwise, the power would be mostly pointless and have little reason for existing.

If you insist to do math on the subject, how about this: the power movement decreases or increases the weight of the subject and contents, but keeps the same amount of "movement" energy in it. That would allow the speed to increase or decrease without any so-called G-force. And it would allow it to keep mostly the same turning radius, and mostly the same effect of an impact.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Too bad it doesn't just work on metahumans so it was really just the run really fast power. I'd say less arguments, but I know I'd be wrong. People would be arguing about the spraining ankle likelihood.

IMO this is a case where there is a reason they didn't add a line, increased speed is hard to handle you will likely crash. And that is because its magic and it isn't harder to handle the increased speeds. If your car normally goes 50 and now its going 250, the 250 is just like the 50 to the driver. if he'd need to make a crash test at 50, he still needs to make the same crash test. If they wanted additional modifiers for moving at light speed, there would be additional modifiers in the game. They already addressed the power with an errata and in 4A, if they thought they should mention increased difficulty of control they would have added it. Instead they just limited the vehicles size a bit.

[jimbo]

Speaking of limits for spells, how large can the subject of Improved Invisibility be? Is it reasonable to assume Object resistance goes up markedly based on size and not just complexity?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Speaking of limits for spells, how large can the subject of Improved Invisibility be?

As far as I know, there is no size limit...
Common Sense would have precedence here...
People and metahumans: okay... a vehicle? maybe... a building? Never...

That said, each GM has a different vision of what is rational when using this spell I would imagine...

EDIT: The spell targets a single Target... I would say that a single target is something fairly small... A car has multiple compartments, as do buildings... You want large areas? Then use an area version of the spell I would say...

Keep the Faith

[Dumori]

As large as you want really. Though that seams stupid at stupidly large sized objects ie the earth ect.

[koogco]

The thing about magic is, its magic.
So, why can't you make the earth invisible? why cant you use power: movement on the earth?
Because it wouldnt be fun for more than 5 minutes, thats why. That is the sole reason every work of fiction which includes magic has it limited somehow and/or controlled by some mystical power who aparently doesnt want to turn the earth invisible.

Its pretty much the same reason that 95% of the times, aliens in fiction has 1spine 1head 2legs 2arms. Is there a reason for this within the backstory? mostly not. It is all a matter of keeping things within some limits that allows humans to wrap their heads around it, and relate to what is going on. And in shadowrun, it isnt exactly entertaining if magic has the power to do anything the magician wants, and as such, the rules presents all sorts of limits. However, it is a need for said rules to be relatively short, and you cannot take everything into account. For an example of this, look at laws in the real world. The collective law text for a single country is probably more than most people could ever read and comprehend, but we still expect everyone to know and follow said laws. Happily, most people has a decend portion of common sense, and only need to know the basics of the laws to deduct most of the rest as needed. At any rate, even real laws still have holes in them, and we don't want our rulebook for a game to be of 10.000+ pages. As such, only some basic stuff is written in the books, and its up to peoples common sense to deduct the rest. Alot of topics on here seems to want to analyse the rules for holes. That is completely rediculous, if you want that kind of accuracy and applicability (ok, i made that word up) then you can go make your own 10.000 pages rpg.
Sorry about the rant, actually, this discussion seems well argumented and my rant had been better placed in alot of other topics lately.

TL;DR:
Rules are simple for a reason, apply the gamemasters common sense to everything.

[pbangarth]

I use this thing called a "brain." As opposed to being a total dumbass and just trying to find idiotic reasons to come up with equally idiotic reasons to be a dick to players.

I assume this is directed at my comment above. The only evidence of a brain being turned off in this discussion is the attempt to rationalize house-ruling to make magic more than it is.

A player has his PC stick a jet engine on the back of his motorcycle, and then kills the PC when he tries to turn a corner at 500 kph... the player is an idiot.

He sticks a Movement power on the bike and fails the same corner at 500kph... the GM is an idiot. That makes sense?

There are lots of ways to use the Movement power that do not require house ruling it to keep the character alive, and do not nerf the power.

- Levitate and Movement - if you don't burn up falling at terminal velocity, you won't ignite going horizontally at 120 kph either.
- Movement on said bike, and run a race just fast enough to beat the competition (Hey, what would the gang leader pay for a year and a day of the fastest bike in the city, at the end of which he sells the bike to his rival gang leader?)
- your plane gets hit and you lose one of two engines -- empower it and keep flying at the same speed the plane was built for
- jumping from one building to the next will save your life... it doesn't matter if you break an ankle on landing, but you have to run fast enough to bridge the gap
- etc. (Insert your own creativity)

If one insists he has a brain, let him use it to be creative with the rules and situation as they are, rather than throw out the consequences of silliness and sloppy play and invent a whole bunch of rule-contradicting rationalizations just as silly, "'Cause its... magic!"

That's dumbass.

[Saint Sithney]

First off, just because a vehicle has a listed upper-limit speed, that does not mean that it will always be traveling at said listed speed.

The same thing applies here. The MiG-67 isn't ever going to be moving at full speeds through hairy terrain, so, with magic boosting him, he's still going to be going at those same relative speeds. On a straight-away though, he'll be able to burn out at his full mach 3 if he feels the need. Air-resistance is not going to factor into this since he has a Magic Air Ghost moving the air for him.

And, since we are talking about relative speeds, he should even be able to cruise around natural land features at that same [multiplier] speed. See, I envision the whole Movement power as sort of a bubble of around the object. This bubble acts as a pathway or tunnel through the appropriate element wherein the target of the power is drawn along its path in a much more efficient way. I extrapolate this through the [multiplier] effect to Acceleration. A vehicle with a typical Acceleration of 60 has a new Acceleration of (F/2)60 which means that the Spirit is actively pushing/pulling/assisting the movement. This would mean the target should also be [multiplier] more effective at turning and breaking, which would allow the craft/person to apply that multiplier effect to every single movement action. So, a car capable of making a 90° turn at 30 kph without losing traction should be able to take that same turn at (F/2)30 kph without skidding out because a Magic Air Ghost is compensating with counter-forces. Therefore, if this MiG-67 usually traces a stream at around 350 kph, then, with the assistance of the magic Movement bubble, it should be able to do so at (F/2)350 kph. Meanwhile the rest of the world outside of the movement tunnel is affected in the regular manner, so no tornado-force winds tearing up trees or cows being lifted up in the suction wake of the displaced air.


But it really is like Dire Radiant says. Magic. It is MAGIC. You can't just factor Magic into or out of an equation.

[hobgoblin]

You might have a slightly increased IR signature also, if memory serves the SR-71 heated up substantially due to friction.

enough that various fluid systems was built leaky to allow the connections enough expansion room without breaking something during flight.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

enough that various fluid systems was built leaky to allow the connections enough expansion room without breaking something during flight.

Yeah.. those things leaked like a sieve on the tarmac...

Keep the Faith

[Kronk2]

I would DEFINATELY be employing a spirit with GUARD

The Guard power gives the critter the ability to prevent normal environmental accidents and hazards (both natural and those induced by the Accident power), such as preventing
someone from succumbing to heatstroke or saving someone from drowning. Th e Guard power can also be used to prevent a glitch from occurring. Guard may be used on a number of
characters at once equal to the critter’s Magic attribute.

This would include massive airspace confliction. (An environmental hazard of flying over .3 miles a second.) As well as explosive decompression from ejecting from a craft at atmospheric limits/

[augmentin]

SR2 and SR4A just describe the change is speed. SR3 add a bit including "Depending on the situation, this change in speed may call for a Crash or Stress Test."

So I would say that the power does not aid the driver/pilot, and that ground (or close to ground) movement would be exceedingly difficult if the terrain is at all restricted.

Having said that, if a spirit was also using Guard (which prevents accidents and glitches) on the driver/pilot, than I would probably just ignore such complications.

You beat me to it. I was going to suggest "accident" as the authorities countermeasure to movement aided smuggler runs. I imagine accident + movement = instadeath. In fact, that's not a bad tactic to use in a chase. Movement then accident the pursuing KE cruiser. Hmmm....

[Banaticus]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I'm going to use a spirit of air to boost my runner's movement rate next time he breaks into a corporate facility.

Nothing here says you can't screw up and drive that empowered motorcycle so fast the wheels come off.

I was making a pinewood derby car once and was sanding down the wheels so that they would be perfectly smooth when I had the brilliant idea to use the grinder with a high grit wheel to get a smoothly buffed wheel. I put the wheel on the brad so it would spin freely (so it would sand evenly around the wheel) and held it up against the grinder. Apparently, plastic spinning that fast heats up some where it rubs against the brad and the wheel melted its way through the brad, destroying the wheel.