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bard4life
hi, a newbie to shadowrun magic, I have find out that you can make you own spells and since there is no spell that affects time so I figure out I will make own. but I need a help making such a spell

first off I know its going to a Manipulation Spell and area-effect spell, I just need help figure out the rest of it.

thanks

btw I get this from watching Heroes, and Hiro.
Caine Hazen
Time manipulation is right out RAW wise
nathanross
Yeah, Time Stopping is not in the core of the rules, same with Teleportation. I dont there is a way to create a game balanced version of time stopping.
Shiloh
Well, if your GM says "okay", you can do anything. But it doesn't fit with Canon: the greatest and oldest of magic using creatures are not reported to have this ability. Remember that Hiro's power is deeply unreliable (it works when it suits the story - that sort of power is terribly easy to spoil a game with as a GM where the PCs are the focus), and SR spells *always* work. They might not acheive enough successes to do what you want, or they might kill you and fail that way, but really Time Stop is just a game breaker in SR4. I'd advise putting the idea down and walking away from it. Or give it a Force x 4 + 6 Drain value, and a threshold of 6 to do anything so you need Magic 6 at least to cast it without overcasting and you're resisting DV 30. But even then, Dragons would be able to do it. And they don't. So there has to be a reason. I'd say it's outside possibility.
bard4life
just spoke to my GM, he said no way, its too powerful. you guys are right its a game killer.
Aaron
Page 159, Street Magic.
Shiloh
You can *kinda* get some of what you're looking for (the drop on your enemies; the ability to act while they cannot) by taking Enhance Reflexes and being good enough to cast it at F6 and get 6 successes...

QUOTE (Aaron @ Apr 16 2008, 04:24 PM) *
Page 159, Street Magic.


What's it say (for those of us separated from the book)?
Aaron
QUOTE (nathanross @ Apr 16 2008, 08:49 AM) *
Yeah, Time Stopping is not in the core of the rules, same with Teleportation.

You can totally teleport in Shadowrun. You just use the B button to open your radial menu, highlight Teleport, and hit the right trigger.

Duh.

Nightwalker450
QUOTE (Aaron @ Apr 16 2008, 10:28 AM) *
You can totally teleport in Shadowrun. You just use the B button to open your radial menu, highlight Teleport, and hit the right trigger.

Duh.


dead.gif *twitch twitch*
Aaron
QUOTE (Nightwalker450 @ Apr 16 2008, 09:34 AM) *
dead.gif *twitch twitch*

=i)
bard4life
just looked it up

"Sorcery cannot Alter the Fabric of the Space/Time Continuum."
"Spells cannot directly change distance or the passge of time. teleportion and time travel are the holy grails of magic R&D departments the world over, but no one has been able to unravel the knotty problem of affecting space or time with magic. spells can speed up or slow down processes, such as healing or chemical reactions, and allow subjects to move quicky, they cannot dirctly alter time or space"

so thats out, but thanks to everyone who replied.
b1ffov3rfl0w
Leaving aside the question of what it means to speed up/slow down "processes" but not "time", I would say that this means it is possible, canonically, to have a spell that speeds up you and some other person or people relative to everything else, by a factor of a lot.

Now, it would be game-breaking if you could use it to, for instance, kill your enemies while they are moving at one millionth of your speed (like Increase Initiative but with hundreds of thousands of extra IPs instead of 4). But what if, for some reason, you could not really interact with them, or move outside of a small area (say, Force meters), or cast other spells? Basically it would let you take a time out, catch your breath, maybe shake off the secondary effects of a taser or some chemicals, and you could have a conversation with the other players (which is what players will do in the middle of a firefight anyway, although normally they shouldn't be allowed to). That wouldn't be so bad. The key is to figure out if a particular use of the spell would be abusive, and then disallowing those uses.
Cabral
Hiro's ability to time trime may not be duplicatable in Shadowrun, but some other aspects are, to a degree. For example, I recall him freezing time to study the identity of his father's killer.

If you want to duplicate Hiro's abilities to a degree, make a Mystic Adept and take the Increase Reflexes spell and 3D Memory adept ability from Street Magic.
Shiloh
QUOTE (b1ffov3rfl0w @ Apr 17 2008, 01:44 AM) *
Leaving aside the question of what it means to speed up/slow down "processes" but not "time"...


Pretty important distinction to be able to draw when you're talking about what is and is not possible.


QUOTE
, I would say that this means it is possible, canonically, to have a spell that speeds up you and some other person or people relative to everything else, by a factor of a lot.

Now, it would be game-breaking if you could use it to, for instance, kill your enemies while they are moving at one millionth of your speed (like Increase Initiative but with hundreds of thousands of extra IPs instead of 4).


As you say, that's what Increase Initiative does. Just liek Cyber. It speeds up your metabolic processes so that by some handwavium, you act 4 times as fast as an un-amped person. You might be able to define an AE version of the spell, or a multitarget version, but such things are still working on existing processes.

QUOTE
But what if, for some reason, you could not really interact with them...


What reason? It's an existing process that's being sped up. If *that* could have interacted, why couldn't the accelerated process?

QUOTE
...or move outside of a small area (say, Force meters)...


That's a reasonable restriction. Areas can be affected. But it would affect everyone in the area.

QUOTE
...or cast other spells?...


Again, what mechanism? Why does a fast recovery mean you can't cast, unless a side effect is that you're running so hot you can't concentrate?

QUOTE
The key is to figure out if a particular use of the spell would be abusive, and then disallowing those uses.


Abusive of the spirit of the game, or the cosmology of the setting? I'd argue that the latter is an integral part of the former, and if you want to play with timestop spells you probably aren't looking for a SR game, but something more like Aberrant or Champions.
Larme
I think time stopping could be accomplished with the following steps:

a) A quest to get something a free spirit wants so he'll give you some metaplanar information

b) A journey to the metaplanes to ask someone who knows about a time stopping artifact

c) Some kind of epic quest to the center of the earth or the depths of the Amazon or something equally terrifying to retrieve an ancient artifact

d) Maybe another epic quest to find the special magical crystals that power the artifact

e) Figuring out how to actually turn the artifact on without killing everyone, which may require another epic quest for a free spirit or into the metaplanes

f) You can only stop time like once before the artifact shatters because it's very old.

i.e. this couldn't be part of an ordinary game session, it would have to be plot specific. You wouldn't be stopping time just because you wanted to, there would have to be some special reason, like an employer needs to stop time to prevent an ultra-rare magical radioisotope with a half life of a trillionth of a second from disappearing by stopping time's flow around it, which will then enable some cool experiment or something.
DocTaotsu
Can you say... ressonance cascade?

Thanks Dr. Freeman, now it's Shadowrun:Half-Life and the best weapon in the game is a dikoted crowbar...
wink.gif
Lionhearted
QUOTE (Shiloh @ Apr 17 2008, 06:53 AM) *
What reason? It's an existing process that's being sped up. If *that* could have interacted, why couldn't the accelerated process?

Again, what mechanism? Why does a fast recovery mean you can't cast, unless a side effect is that you're running so hot you can't concentrate?


If we move into the realms of Quantum theory (Im by no means an expert, correct me if im wrong) your composed by atoms, the atoms are composed by freemoving electrons and a neutron/proton core, around these cores is an enourmous amount of empty space (comparable to a fly in a sport stadium) before you reach the electrons, now the reason you perceive things as solid is the constant exchange of electrons between you and the surrounding world.. if you speed up your body (and thereby your atoms) to the level where everything else seem to be in a standstill it is quite possible that you will simply pass through matter, as the electrons are moving to fast for other electrons to catch up and interact with yours. ergo, you can try to shoot someone, but the speeded electrons in the gun will move to fast for the body of the target to react, passing through him as he was thin air.. same mechanics with kicks or any psychical interaction between you and something not affected by the speed increase. Now as for spells, say that you move in 99,9% percent of the speed of light, the ambivalent mana doesnt move at such speeds and therefor you cannot form a spell in a single pass, its a matter of not only you having time to mentally cast a spell by doing the right preparations and such, the mana needed in the spell actually dont have enough time to be channelled into your body..

sounds reasonable?
Shiloh
QUOTE (Lionhearted @ Apr 17 2008, 01:55 PM) *
If we move into the realms of Quantum theory (Im by no means an expert, correct me if im wrong)...


What you're trying to armwave isn't really anything to do with quantum mechanics.

QUOTE
...you're composed [of] atoms, the atoms are composed freemoving electrons and a neutron/proton core...an enourmous amount of empty space...reason you perceive things as solid is the constant exchange of electrons between you and the surrounding world...


Nope. You feel things as solid because the negative charge of the electron shells of the atoms in your fingers repels the negative charge of the electron shells of the atoms in the solid you are touching. An atom cannot interpenetrate an atom because the probability density charges can't pass through each other. <edit> Or if they're given enough energy to do so, the atoms react to become molecules.</edit>

QUOTE
...speed up your body (and thereby your atoms) to the level where everything else seem to be in a standstill it is quite possible that you will simply pass through matter, as the electrons are moving to fast for other electrons to catch up and interact with yours..


Except that charges interact at very high speeds, approaching the speed of light, and you can't accelerate yourself that fast with magic. Speed of thought is about the maximum, even for Astral forms that don't need to worry about Inertia and such pesky physical constraints. And if you did, you'd appear to be standing virtually still by virtue of time dilation, so everything would cancel out anyway. And making everything but you effectively unsolid to you would have difficult effects like sinking into the ground, as well as moving at light speed requiring some serious handwaving to keep you from accelerating off in a random net direction... And if you could hit lightspeed, you'd be more concerned with other matters like how to get to Alpha Centauri...

QUOTE
...mana needed in the spell actually dont have enough time to be channelled into your body...


This could certainly be true, but, as I've pointed out, there are other problems that you'd have to deal with beyond not being able to cast a spell.

QUOTE
sounds reasonable?


You've already guessed my answer, I think smile.gif
Kerberos
QUOTE (Lionhearted @ Apr 17 2008, 07:55 AM) *
If we move into the realms of Quantum theory (Im by no means an expert, correct me if im wrong) your composed by atoms, the atoms are composed by freemoving electrons and a neutron/proton core, around these cores is an enourmous amount of empty space (comparable to a fly in a sport stadium) before you reach the electrons, now the reason you perceive things as solid is the constant exchange of electrons between you and the surrounding world.. if you speed up your body (and thereby your atoms) to the level where everything else seem to be in a standstill it is quite possible that you will simply pass through matter, as the electrons are moving to fast for other electrons to catch up and interact with yours. ergo, you can try to shoot someone, but the speeded electrons in the gun will move to fast for the body of the target to react, passing through him as he was thin air.. same mechanics with kicks or any psychical interaction between you and something not affected by the speed increase. Now as for spells, say that you move in 99,9% percent of the speed of light, the ambivalent mana doesnt move at such speeds and therefor you cannot form a spell in a single pass, its a matter of not only you having time to mentally cast a spell by doing the right preparations and such, the mana needed in the spell actually dont have enough time to be channelled into your body..

sounds reasonable?

Nope, not in the slightest, but it might do for a pseudo-scientific explanation if the players and GM wants to have a time-stop spell.
Larme
Guys: magic does not give two craps about quantum mechanics. In fact, I imagine that modern physical models are invalid in the Sixth World, because they absolutely fail to account for magical phenomena. If magic worked on a quantum level, shouldn't it be incredibly easy to make things teleport, which is something magic can't do? Science is great, but applying it directly to Shadowrun is kinda not gonna get you very far nyahnyah.gif
Lionhearted
Thanks Shiloh I actually learned something, Feels good to be proved wrong.. ^^
As Kerberos remarks, the players probably know less than physics than you (unless your playing with experts, then all bets are of) and it could serve as a handwaved "explanation" atleast the mana part has some validity to it..
Shiloh
QUOTE (Larme @ Apr 17 2008, 02:38 PM) *
Guys: magic does not give two craps about quantum mechanics. In fact, I imagine that modern physical models are invalid in the Sixth World, because they absolutely fail to account for magical phenomena. If magic worked on a quantum level, shouldn't it be incredibly easy to make things teleport, which is something magic can't do? Science is great, but applying it directly to Shadowrun is kinda not gonna get you very far nyahnyah.gif


We don't really know *what* magic gives a crap about. It might be quantum effects that are *stopping* magic from teleporting stuff. We do know that magic stuff still interacts with base matter using physical laws (acid bolts are actual acid, lightning bolts are actual electricity etc) though. And what the limits are, currently.
Lionhearted
I call for Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, if im not wrong that is the largest obstacle in modern day teleportation research
Fortune
Just say no!
Kerberos
QUOTE (Lionhearted @ Apr 17 2008, 10:22 AM) *
I call for Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, if im not wrong that is the largest obstacle in modern day teleportation research

I'm fairly confident that there is no such thing as modern teleportation research. Not among serious researchers.
Lionhearted
QUOTE (Kerberos @ Apr 17 2008, 11:59 AM) *
I'm fairly confident that there is no such thing as modern teleportation research. Not among serious researchers.


Not on a large scale, but there is..
Aaron
QUOTE (Lionhearted @ Apr 17 2008, 10:22 AM) *
I call for Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, if im not wrong that is the largest obstacle in modern day teleportation research

You may be right, and you may be wrong.
cryptoknight
QUOTE (Kerberos @ Apr 17 2008, 11:59 AM) *
I'm fairly confident that there is no such thing as modern teleportation research. Not among serious researchers.



Sure there is... that's what Heisenberg Compensators are for.
Cabral
QUOTE (Larme @ Apr 17 2008, 08:38 AM) *
Guys: magic does not give two craps about quantum mechanics. In fact, I imagine that modern physical models are invalid in the Sixth World, because they absolutely fail to account for magical phenomena. If magic worked on a quantum level, shouldn't it be incredibly easy to make things teleport, which is something magic can't do? Science is great, but applying it directly to Shadowrun is kinda not gonna get you very far nyahnyah.gif

If the world worked on a quantum level, wouldn't we be able to teleport?

Magic is ... well, I like to think of it as a Newtonian force, but I know that's not accurate. I like the equal and opposite reaction as an explanation for drain. The bigger the effect, the bigger the kick in the stomach.

Two objects cannot accupy the same space.
I cannot teleport.
Magic can't change either guideline.
Larme
According to quantum theory, teleportation is theoreticaly possible. What happens is that electrons in two different places become entangled, that is they are neither here nor there, but sort of in two places. Like Shcroedinger's cat, they are in flux, in neither state, until you observe them. But once you observe them, they have to pick a state, which means they have to choose either here or there. So if you could entangle my electrons with electrons in another place without looking, and then look, you might be able to manipulate it so that the electrons always choose to be there, not here, i.e. I teleport to the desired location. This is a really simplistic explanation, but I don't understand it that well, and it's all entirely theoretical anyway.

The point is, if magic respected quantum physics, you'd think it would deal with electrons and entanglement and flux, and have properties that are consistent with quantum physics. But it can't. It has nothing to do with physics. It takes something completely non physical, mana, and transforms it into physical matter and energy, which is usually destroyed several instants after being created. Physics simply does not account for a secondary world overlayed on top of the material world. According to physics, there is no mana and no astral plane. This means that modern physics is wrong. Remember that the laws of physics are theories. They are models we use to describe the behavior of matter. Matter doesn't obey the laws, because the laws only exist in human minds. The laws, rather, are an attempt to explain and predict why matter acts the way it does. You shouldn't look at magic, and then try and explain how magic obeys quantum physics. Magic shatters quantum theory, along with most other physical theories, by giving concrete, observable qualities to phenomena which are demonstrably non-physical. So, yeah.
Rad
Actually, certain aspects of quantum theory would explain magic and the metaplanes quite nicely. In fact, it would finally answer that question about why metaplane environments and the "rules" of magic themselves (ie: traditions) can be so subjective and still work. I guess dragons are just quantum physics experts.

Speaking of dragons, just because they don't do certain things with magic doesn't mean they can't. (And therefore that nobody else can either, being so incredibly inferior to wizworms.) The RAW may state that time travel is impossible via magic in SR, I don't have Street Magic yet, so I can't really be sure, but I think it's entirely possible that dragons just decided not to mess with things like time travel simply because of the epic pain in the ass they can be--even for beings as mighty and enlightened as them.

Dragons *do* seem to have a strong traditional bent, just look at how ticked they got over the big D's will.

Lastly, teleportation doesn't have to bring up the issue of matter occupying the same space--you could be trading places with the matter (hopefully air) at your destination. That could get interesting if you teleported into a body of water or a cloud of noxious gas.

>Imagines a 2 meter cube of water suddenly collapsing and pouring out across the ground<
Lionhearted
QUOTE (Rad @ Apr 18 2008, 02:09 PM) *
>Imagines a 2 meter cube of water suddenly collapsing and pouring out across the ground<


I'd be more concerned if the water was inside a glass container.. two tons of water falling from the sky.. now that's not a nice way to go
Ustio
Ignoring the whole time stop debate (still hate that spell stoopid planar shepherd)

Teleportation can be done in SR4, sort of,

first open astrral rift so you now exits on the astral plane only.

Next go to metaplane of your choice, buy the usual tourist junk take in the sights, run screaming from the natives

Third retrun to the astral but not at the point you entered

fourth second astral rift to let you back into the meat realms

Job done, if rather inelegantly
Rad
More of an ethereal jaunt than a teleport, but yeah. (Hey, *you* brought up the cancer--I'm just running with it.)

An interesting thing to note: In the BBB section on manipulation spells, it lists gravity as one of the forces they can manipulate...

...how much force would you need for a black hole/tesseract/time dilation spell? biggrin.gif

For that matter, I can totally see a toxic mage with a background in physics forming a cult for the express purpose of increasing the earth's mass via ritual sorcery until you hit the Schwarzschild radius and the whole thing goes >shluuuuurp*poof*<

That'd make a good villain. (Or a particularly psychotic PC)
Shiloh
QUOTE (Ustio @ Apr 18 2008, 03:03 PM) *
Ignoring the whole time stop debate (still hate that spell stoopid planar shepherd)

Teleportation can be done in SR4, sort of,

first open astrral rift so you now exits on the astral plane only.

Next go to metaplane of your choice, buy the usual tourist junk take in the sights, run screaming from the natives

Third retrun to the astral but not at the point you entered

fourth second astral rift to let you back into the meat realms

Job done, if rather inelegantly


Is the metaplanar bit necessary? Once you're on the Astral, can you not just move "at the speed of thought" to another place in the Manasphere and tear another new rift? Saves all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace the Metaplanes and feeling unpleasantly like being drunk.
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