Petrification and aging Options

[Pendaric]

This came up and still undecided. Would the target of a petrify spell still age normally?

An Npc was petrified for several years so need to know this one for continunity.

[Draamal]

I wouldn't think so. I've used it in other games to "time travel".

[Yerameyahu]

Who's sustaining it the whole time?

[Pendaric]

The spell was quickened

[bannockburn]

It's magic. A wizard did it. In other words: Why care? Just decide on what's best for the story (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[The Jopp]

Who's sustaining it the whole time?

Spell: Petrificaton
Limited Target: Self
Range: Touch
Force 6 Sustaining Foci (3rd ed)
Force 6 Spell
Caster wears Sustaining foci
Sealed room, opens from the inside and is warded.

Fourth edition would be an Ally spirit locked in the room with the caster sustaining the spell for all time.

[Stahlseele]

So.
You are Stone.
You can't do anything.
You can't eat, drink, see, hear, taste or feel anything . .
You are wide awake. How long untill you go crazy then?

[Yerameyahu]

If you cast it on yourself, when do you stop? I thought everything auto-dropped when you go unconscious. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) If not, I guess your plan could be 'forever, unless someone deactivates my focus'? Anyway, I was more asking about the OP's specific (which he stated was quickening).

Stahl, you're not awake, you're unconscious.

[Stahlseele]

ah, you are not?
ok, i thought you were.

[The Jopp]

ah, you are not?
ok, i thought you were.

Thank you.

I will now add that part as an exception to the regular spell - and allow them to hear and see things.

A wonderful spell to use on ones enemies and keep them as conscious statues in the garden with a sustaining foci down in the vault.
May I introduce my new magician character NPC - Medusa.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

So.
You are Stone.
You can't do anything.
You can't eat, drink, see, hear, taste or feel anything . .
You are wide awake. How long untill you go crazy then?

Hey, it worked in Farscape... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Yerameyahu]

The Jopp, this is just my personal stance, but altering a canon spell (even a horrible one like Petrify) in that way seems wrong. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) How are they seeing, hearing, and maintaining consciousness while also being literally calcium carbonate?

[Pendaric]

But more importantly do they age while ensnared by the malign corp wizzer supremacist that petrified them and quicken the spell in the first place?

And were are talking over a decade here not months.

I can spin the story both ways, argue it both ways so am looking for a tie break game balance.

[StealthSigma]

Hey, it worked in Farscape... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Thank you.

You can also survive being decapitated.

[Stahlseele]

Hey, it worked in Farscape... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

i was thinking of Stanislaw Lem actually.
the man who built the soul . .

[pbangarth]

But more importantly do they age while ensnared by the malign corp wizzer supremacist that petrified them and quicken the spell in the first place?

And were are talking over a decade here not months.

I can spin the story both ways, argue it both ways so am looking for a tie break game balance.

Aging is a metabolic process. If there is no metabolism, there is no aging.

But calcium carbonate does weather like any other mineral, and woe betide the victim if he's left out in the rain.

[Yerameyahu]

I get the reference (love it), but I'm pretty sure damage to the Petrified form (beheading) hurts the character. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I don't think you can avoid this by trying to reattach.

[Stahlseele]

Spell Says he gets an Barrier-Rating equal to his Body or Force of the Spell right?
So there you go. You overcome Barrier-Rating, you do Damage as per normal.

[Yerameyahu]

Right, and beheading would qualify. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Even if the character is not 'living' (aging), he can definitely die.

[Falconer]

Gains barrier armor rating equal to body + net hits. (doesn't say how many boxes damage... so it's probably like solid stone... structure rating 13 (13 damage blows a hole 1m^2, 10cm deep in the statue).

I'd say that yeah, you can chop off the head... but he's not dead until it's unsustained and he bleeds out has the nerves severed... and that you could concievably reattach the head prior to this... and pray that when unsustained you got it back on right.

All grey.. but I'd go with... he's a status alive and unconcious... but no damage really comes back to him until he's unsustained. Brings new meaning to the... yeah grab hoffa turn him into a statue... quicken it... (so it lasts until the mage dies IIRC). Break him up and then mix him into the concrete of Giant's stadium.

[Yerameyahu]

No, I don't see that you could reattach (can you reattach normal stone?), and the rules specifically say he takes damage in real time:

any damage suffered by the stone-like form affects the target normally. While petrified, the subject has a barrier Armor rating equal to Body + net hits (see Barriers, p. 194).

So he takes normal damage and just gains 'a barrier Armor rating'. Normal boxes, no Structure, etc.

Assuming the spell continues to work on fragments (which we've discussed before, to no real conclusion), you can use it for really bad FTL communication! Hehe.

[Falconer]

Good catch!

Yeah... OFF WITH HIS HEAD!


As far as stone repair... it's the 2070's... who knows what they can do... wouldn't surprise me if there were some nanites which might be able to do it...


*sniff* one of these days I'll find a GM who'll let me research a 'Turn to C4' spell... (oh the fun and drawbacks of that one... yeah you need to capture the target... he has a cranial bomb... turn to c4... small boom sets off the big boom wiping out half the team... oooops!).

[Yerameyahu]

Haha. Yeah, it's not the reattaching per se that's the issue, it's just that (RAW) he'd be a dead reattached guy. Now, I'm fine with a house version of Petrify that is totally unlike the canon one, and *does* work as some people have described here… though it does pose sticky questions for magical theory.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I think it might actually be interesting.

Technically speaking, all that's required for a metahuman to continue to live - for given values of living - is for oxygenation to continue to reach the brain. See also: Jarhead.


So in theory, this could make the Petrify spell a 2070s version of the Schlockian Nanny-bag. "Oh drek, Oscar just got his head shot off. You call back to base, I'll petrify his head."

So the question then occurs, with a sufficiently-motivated and top-funded medical facillity and a wimp body, could the physicians of the 2070s successfully go from "decapitated head which has been petrified" to "decapitated head successfully placed on life support" to "whole metahuman?"

[Yerameyahu]

The rules don't really cover any of this, though. Damage is abstract, and even the Severe Wounds rules don't include anything about decapitation. So, the petrified character can take boxes of damage, and that's all. Presumably, he gains immunity to certain other now-irrelevant things, like drowning. We're assuming that the number of boxes of damage associated with breaking off the head would inherently be enough to kill the person, though, so it doesn't matter. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I agree it's a kind of interesting question *aside* from the RAW, though. Petrify (and Goo) are weird features of the magical theory canon, at best, and there are a lot of odd consequences like this. Can you heal someone by Petrify + Shape? If they're not dead, can you use the head/parts for other kinds of magic (does anything useful affect unconscious people?)?