Teleportation in Magic, Does it have a place in Shadowrun...??? Options

[SpeedFreak]

Just recently watched X-Men 2 again the other day, and if you want limited teleportation (or a close approximation thereof) just limit it the way they did in the movie, LOS only.

[Sren]

My favorite SR GM let one of my many elf-mage's have something akin to teleportation, but it was a metamagic technique, not a spell.

The character could shift his physical body to the astral plane with a willpower test (TN=background count), and negligable drain (moderate drain, TN=BG count).

The character could only take active foci with him, and personal object with a strong enough personal connection that they could be used as a ritual link (also had a shotgun that was rarely use... never on a person, that the character also carried).

On the astral plane, I had to use my normal physical-plane attributes (which were very low, at least compared to my mental attributes), I could not move through any barrier that I could not move through on the physical plane, only got a +10 to my initiative (as opposed to the normal +20 for astral beings, and I had to fight for that), but I could move at my normal astral speed.

The character was taught this ability by a great dragon who'd used it twice in front of the character, and had used it in multiple campaigns. (As mentioned before, it was one of the things used to point out how much there was that mortals just couldn't comprehend). The dragon made the character swear an oath that he wouldn't try to project to the metaplanes while using the ability (or the dragon would hunt down and kill the character).

While the ability could get me out of handcuffs, it was only really useful for fast travel or possibly to escape, but my character had made enough enemies aware of most of his powers and general personality that keeping him using it for impressive escapes was nearly impossible (but the rest of the team was really impressed). The character was eventually captured (last game) and being transported in a van lined with magically active wood, the character was hooded with a mage-mask, and covered with fab-drenched towels. Also in the van was a pair of guards aimign shotguns at me, and several other similarly bound prisoners. When I vanished, the guards started shooting the other prisoners in the head... my character had a problem with killing non-combatants (tied up and unconcsious = non-combatant), so he let himself be transported like a lgood little prisoner... ahh the memories, the GM promised soem fun in a sectret orbital prison for mages, but the semester ended (at college) and I graduated and moved 2200 miles away :-( . Thanks for the reminder...

Just an idea if you really feel a need to add some sort of teleportation to your games. Doesn't really break the rules, but doesn't really follow them either... look at it as more of a "transform into weak spirit" metamagic ability (or spell, if spells are preferable).

Uber-Mage
S'Ren

[Jinx the Raccon]

:scatter: Instead of teleport, how about something along the lines of Create False Body.
That would allow a mage to create a humanoid shaped body out of available materials (coats, straw, paper, dust) and jump into it and move around like a rigger.
All spells cast while in the False body would cause physical Drain and there would still be a limit on how long he could sustain said spell. The mage could then end the spell and travel astral back to his own body.
Although this would not allow for transporting goodies it would still allow the player to hide it in a convenient spot to be found later, during normal buiness hours.

[draco aardvark]

I always liked the idea of teleportation as powerful magic, but achievable and long range.
Does anyone here read Errant Story.? The way it's done there is with ritual sorcery, and requires something like a summoning circle on both ends. If you want to make it even harder, require there to be mages at both the sending and receiving circles.

[Dr. Black]

We had a game where fast movement/teleportation was sort of achieved.

Manipulation spell, Instantaneous, S drain, LOS, TN = Body + spcl(see below). Converts your body into Light/energy. Noticeable in the visual spectrum as a bright flash of light like a flashlight covering the distance traveled. Localized thunderclap as the instantaneous transformation breaks the sound barrier (equivalent to a gunshot). Cannot move through solid objects unless they are transparent. Must add Object resistance to TN (half for drain) for highest rated item that the caster wishes to bring with him. Can have caster only versions, or cast on others.

We felt this was fairly well balanced. Its not gonna be stealthy. Its gonna be pretty difficult with hi bod and technology carrying targets. Can travel long distances with a telescope

Good as a 'get the hell out of here fast' spell for the mage or a single party member in dire perril.

[Kyuhan]

Was there any range limit on that? Cause like you said, with a telescope you could go far...like, the moon, or Z-Orbital.

[ES_Riddle]

Turning your body into light would be roughly equivalent with setting off a nuke. Say you have a 60 kg mage. When he converts to energy he will be 5.4*10^18 Joules (60*9*10^16 J). That's about a 1290 megaton blast. That has a range of about 200 kilometers for producing third degree burns for a nondirected blast, and you would be focusing this from where you are to where you are going.

Considering that I used a pretty light mage, you can see where this would go if a troll mage tried to turn herself into light, I hope.

[Kyuhan]

Talk about suicide bombing eh?

[Moon-Hawk]

A metamagic technique that allowed someone to shift their entire body to the astral would have an Earthdawn precident, wouldn't it? Isn't that something the Lightbearers could do?

[Nikoli]

[Shadow]

I did a run once where the players were breaking into a underground, black bag Ares facility out in the boondocks. The place was SOTA, guards, meta dogs, spirits you name it. They were there looking for a computer chip, but what they found was a lab where they were working on teleporting. Not with magic, but with technology. They had a super computer with a semi AI crunching numbers. They had two labs, one in the boondocks, and one Ares RD in Seattle. The connections were hardwired and you could teleport between the two. That was it.

Of course the facilities auto destruct was set and the team teleported out at the last second. A bunch of lab coats were really surprised when the team appeared on the pad.

I think a one shot, that cannot be duplicated is how something like that could work. But never with magic.

[lacemaker]

My Alma Mater, ANU in Canberra, has completed what I believe to be the first working demonstration of teleportation - a beam of light, which is a bit like cloning a sheep in the "are you sure it's the same one and do you really care?" sense, but I gather they're gradually moving towards solids...

bbc news

[Kagetenshi]

Problem with all of the viable technological teleportation methods I've seen is that none of them seem to offer any suggestion that it won't just result in the death of the individual and the creation of a second individual who believes that he or she is the first individual. Irrelevant for individual 2, but individual 1 might care.

~J

[Ol' Scratch]

[BitBasher]

No, individual 1 would care if he wasn't atomized or molecularly deconstructed in the process.

[hyzmarca]

[RedmondLarry]

The closest thing I know to teleporting is Gecko Crawl, with the Extended Rate modifier (x 10), with a spirit using his Movement Power on you. ;)

[Kagetenshi]