I'm assuming that there's a movie or book reference there, but I don't know what it is.

My personal thought on that is that it, instead of shrinking the components of the atoms (protons, neutrons, electrons) it simply reduces the volume of the electron shell (or temporarily turns them into a type of exotic matter that I shall dub "handwavium").

How so? Levitate is pretty potent.

Or smuggling things past customs in the troll's leg compartment.

Careful that they don't increase their volume too much--if they go too far in that direction, there could be a serious problem when it comes to density. However, that being said, I suppose that they could just rent themselves out to Macy's on Thanksgiving.

Good points. I shall, however, refrain from editing the top post so people can see what you're referring to.

That being said, your points would change the drain to (F/2)+1. However, the change in Drain is offset by the fact that the Force needs to be higher to get the same level of reduction.

Dr. Henry "Hank" Pym, AKA Ant-Man, AKA Giant Man, AKA Goliath, AKA Yellowjacket, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, originally appearing in Tales to Astonish #27 published in January 1962, founding member of the Avengers, currently the third most reviled Marvel superhero right behind Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic.
He discovered Pym Particles, which allow objects and people to shrink and use them, along with a helmet that allowed him to control Ants, to be a superhero under the Name Ant-Man. In Tales to Astonish # 37, he meets Janet Van Dyne and gives her Pym Particle based shrinking powers along with tiny insect wings and poison stingers which she uses to become The Wasp (also a founding member of The Avengers). They eventually get married. He learns how to use Pym Particles grow to huge, changes his name to giant man, changes his name two more times, builds an invincible android that becomes self-aware and decides to destroy the human race, fights a losing battle mental illness, fakes supervillain attacks to make himself look good, and beats his wife. They get divorced.

Eventually, everyone forgive him for the whole spousal abuse fiasco and he becomes a major player in the Avengers. Unfortunately, he jumps on the bandwagon of a Nazi-esq superhuman registration law (which plays as being similar to Jewish registration with the added bonus of the forcible military conscription of children but which has the support of the vast majority of the MU due to a 9/11 type incident) and to enforce this Nazi-esq registration he builds a cyborg clone of the Asgard God Thor (the ultimate act of hubris, a mortal man creating a God) which latter goes insane and kills a good friend of his (as his creations tend to do) and he currently runs a military training camp where conscripted children are taught to kill in the name of law and order using deadly-live-fire training technique (which have already killed one trainee).

Of course, this is significantly better than the Ultimate Universe version of Hank Pym, who nearly killed his wife by having dozens of ants repeatedly bite her while she is Wasp-sized.

I'm going to agree with the net hits instead of force.

As for its versatility, just imagine all of the places that a 5-inch tall person could go and all of the things that he could do. It is almost better than invisibility and it allows for the application of Pack Control on ants. And, of course, a shrunken-down mundane would make a pretty good prisoner.
Even if it remains limited to objects, the ability to rig a two-inch tall steel lynx does have great advantages, particularly if you can return it to it's original size before combat.

For ideas, read various Marvel comics starring a shrinking character (the current Ant-Man (completely different character from Pym) is supposedly pretty good).

Pym was always a good target for writers who wanted to mess someone up because he was never very popular. At the time of the spousal abuse story, he was the only major superhero who they could get away with turning into a wife-beater.

And the rest is going to be in spoiler tags because it is horribly off topic.

Good question. If the latter, it is an extremely powerful weapon (shrink the container around the object (or people) inside and see what happens). If it is the former it opens up a whole new can of worms, since you could potentially cost the spell on a container and then take hundreds of shrunken itsems out of the container.

I'm inclined to suggest that either one one item at a time and the spell fails if there is an obstruction or the hole container but the container and contents count as a single item for the purposes of the spell and the spell will fail if one object is removed.
The latter solution makes us question "what about air" so the former is probably better.

Good point. But we can just say that it's magic. *handwave*

One solution to this is to allow shrink to alter mass. This isn't unprecidented. Shapechange alters mass all the time.

My opinion would be "You shrink a case of ammo/suitcase/packing crate, but the case has to remain sealed. Once the case is opened again, the spell is disrupted and ended and the container and the objects within immediately returns to their natural size."

I'm personally ignoring air; I'll assuming that it'll get forced out of micro-sized holes as the object shrinks.

Sorry, but you're not getting off that easily; the only way to get around that is to allow the spell to change mass in proportion to size.

Liked that idea, eh? I think I've found my next evil magician; a chess playing mage that turns subordinates that fail him into statuary, various curios and playing pieces.

I suppose... and it is more in line with the original idea of Merlin's packing spell. But then just think of the applications:

Smugglers would love it--you could put the entire contents of a ship into a packing crate (and potentially the ship as well); hell, the shipping industry would love it, and for the same reason. But the smugglers would have to then watch out for customs mages going around and dispelling their spell--which would be bad when the cargo suddenly returns to it's previous size.

Want to make someone really uncomfortable and send a message? Shrink a decent sized rock (can't be too big or you won't be able to shrink it enough, say, the size of your fist) and put the resulting grain of sand in their food. An hour after eating or so, stop sustaining the spell.

Burglary is suddenly a cinch; walk in, shrink everything, dump it in the backpack and walk out.

Hmmm... that being said, there needs to be a way to show the stress of shrinking larger objects vs. smaller ones. Why? Well, to put a new spin on "house theft" the thief just comes up, shrinks the house and walks away. Personally, I think for every increase in size past troll--say, every order of magnitude of mass past baseline human (pulling a random number out of thin air), the number of hits to beat the object resistance increases by 1.

I was exaggerating slightly, but there is a great deal of inconsistency in the writing. Some people present it as perfectly reasonable while others present it as Naziism. There doesn't seem to be any overarching editorial vision and no editorial control if there is. It is, in fact, a brilliant example of how not to run a shared universe. In many ways, it is like the asshat SR novels that don't even remotely conform to what is presented in the rulebooks but somehow remain cannon anyway and it gives me some great appreciation of the consistency of the SR metaplot.

In fact, it is a lesson to everyone who works in a shared universe that consistency is a necessary thing which should not be handwaved away, which is somewhat on topic since a spell like this can easily breed inconsistency.

For very 100 base kilograms, add 1 to the threshold. That reduces the chances of shrinking an entire house. It also beings it in line with Levitate. As for the rock issue, in order to prevent irresistible internal explosion attacks I would be inclined to accept that the object which is shrunk is the one that is destroyed if enlarged within a confined space, instead of the container. This drastically limits its usefulness and makes it slightly less useful than Petrification as a purely offensive spell. That way, you can kill someone/destroy something by shrinking him but you can't kill with a shrunken weapon.

I'm I the only one who wants to make a pissed off female IE with a pointy Madonna chestpiece and a throwing wand geas looking down onto the Earth from her moon palace and yelling "make my monster grow!"?

Hmmm... Hadn't considered that.

At that point, I think the GM needs to go and say "and the mage explodes simply by virtue of channeling so much mana through his body."

There does need to be a cap, though, in practicality if not in the wording of the spell... perhaps have it that the threshold increases in a Fibonacci series?

So does this mean that trolls should be taking more damage not less? Creatures like great dragons should have their legs shattered when hit by a car? Sounds slightly more realistic but a lot less fun.

Fair enough.

This is a fun article. Not much that I haven't heard in one place or another before, but it's puts it all together into a very nice piece.