I was interested in other peoples custom spells they have created.

It's weird I am a naturally creative person but I can't seem to think of a spell that isn't a small change to an existing spell or just strictly worse than an existing spell.

My friend came up with a pretty good one:

Hot Potato - All metal touching or touched by afflicted caracter becomes unbearably hot.

I don't know what stats they agreed on for the spell but it was pretty cool....people stripped off their full body armor and dropped their guns...crazyness.

Maybe have it be an elemental manipulation spell with a permanent effect. They'll have to make a will vs. spellcasting+Magic test; they'll have a -1 modifier for each net success on the part of the caster.

HE IS A THIEF??? oh that makes me happy.

SR3 stats only, extrapolate from there:

Draw Weapon
TN 6, Drain: L, Range: Touch
This spells draws the targeted weapon and places it in the character's hand, ready for use. If the caster has a held action and is attacked in melee, this spell can ready his weapon in time for use in a counterattack. Only 0.25kg of material per point of Force may be affected with this spell; if the targeted weapon is too heavy, the spell fails.

Your players may hate me now.

holy jeez us. Thats a long read. I will be perusing several sections. Thank you sir.

Isn't drawing a weapon a simple action? Why would you take a complex action and risk drain (ok, not really a big risk, but you could roll bad)?

It's hard to think of new spell ideas since MiTS sorta filled in everything under the sun. If you're interested in new grimoire, your time may be best spent converting the MiTS spells into SR4 rules for use in your tabletop campaign... Or the lazier option would be to twiddle your thumbs until they release the street magic SR4 supplement which will probably do it for you and much better than you could.

the spell is not incredibly useful on its own. it's mainly intended for use with anchoring. you could also use it with a held action, if for some reason you wanted to fool your opponent into believing you're unarmed.

'couple of ideas for spells (wihtout acutally writing them out stat wise):

Convert critter/spirit powers, such as "accident"

Convert over old Earthdawn spells. Rust and Earth Q'wirl would certianly have uses.

In one of our games, most of the team are all members of the same magical group. One of the strictures is that they msut add something to the groups magical stock pile every two months. Couple of interesting spell formula:

Banana peel : basically like ice sheet but funnier

Orgy: Same effect as chaotic world, but, once again, more interesting effect. Instant orgasm. Obviously, has multiple uses.

Spell Reaver: Basically a spell to damage/weaken other spells in the area of effect. Like an area effect dispel, but limited in ability by the force it's cast at. This one os more of a grey area to some folks, although technically it should be legal. The book says that the only thing sorcery can't do is conjure, teleport, or time travel.

These are all utility-type SR3 spells that I've posted previously. Are there spell creation rules for SR4 yet?

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=4196

Distress Flare, Illusion, base drain L.

This spell causes a bright illusory flare to fire directly upward from the caster to a height of (force)x100 meters. During the day it is visible to a distance of (force + caster's Magic attribute) kilometers. At night multiply that distance by two. The flare will persist for a number of combat rounds equal to it's force without having to be sustained.
It serves no purpose other than to attract attention. Colour of the flare can be decided at the time of casting.

Trid Distress Flare, Illusion, base drain +1L.
As above, but this one will register on mechanical sensors and cameras etc.

Neither flare has any physical substance and if fired indoors will simply continue upwards to its usual height unless stopped by a suitable barrier, such as living matter, a ward or a Barrier spell.

There was some talk about a spell to target other spells earlier, with the intention of dispelling them. I wondered if this could happen, so I did some reading, and this is what I believe after reeading up on the subject:

I don't have the page number, since I don't have the book at work, but it turns out that while spells have auras, they don't have an astral presence, so you can't actually target them. You can assense them, and you can pass through them (much like a mundane's aura), but you can't target them, and you can't attack them.

Instant Allergies

Effect: The target suffers from the equivalent of an allergy / asthma attack with watery eyes, running nose, congestion, etc.

Mechanics:

Magic + Spellcasting vs. Body + Counter-spelling (if available)

For a number of Combat Turns equal to Force/2 (round up), the target suffers a dice pool penalty equal to the Net Hits on the Opposed Test.

Treat

(health spell)
Type M Range T Duration P DV (damage value)-2

Treat restores it's target mentally removing one box of stun damage per hit on the spell casting test. Hits can be used to reduce the base time as per the Heal spell.

In 3rd edition, that spell was called mana static.

Just like MiTS did for SR3 I think the new Magic book (when it eventually comes out) will have rules for making spells as well. My favorite custom spells were the illusion spells. Spells designed to cause agony when no harm was done (ah pain I miss you)