okay, im kind of confused as to why fire magic doesnt work underwater, because all magic is, is the manipulation of mana to acheive a goal. so wouldnt the fire spells just convert to steam? and still do burn damage?

Steam is a seperate Elemental Effect from Fire.
Fire based magics (specifically Elemental Effects) are subject to environmental conditions as per SR4 p154-155. Though this only relates to the secondary effects.
Indirect Combat Spells "travel" to hit targets, and are interrupted by Barriers. Since you could easily count water as a semi-transparent barrier with a specific of dousing fire I would have to agree that fire based Elemental Effects dont work underwater.
Someone needs to make some spells that are Direct Combat with Elemental Effects (Spontaneous Combustion) .
Thats just my 2

you bring forth the fire from your fingertips only to be scalded by boiling water.

Just remember that magic doesn't follow the laws of physics. The fireball spell doesn't create heat, it creates fire, and fire gets extinguished under water, ergo no fire under water.

Not necessarily. Magnesium and White Phosphorus burn underwater. Why not a mana fueled firebolt?

Becomes your mage doesn't believe that fire can burn underwater.

And WP does not burn underwater. It goes out, but lights again when it is re-exposed to oxygen.

Thermite on the other hand ...

Burns really fucking hot. In fact, it's ignition temperature is hot enough to boil water. However, the main point is that thermite supplies its own oxygen to burn.

If thermite is ignited underwater, the molten iron produced will extract oxygen from water and generate hydrogen gas in a single-replacement reaction. This gas may, in turn, burn by combining with oxygen in the air bubble generated.

SO, if our mage in question were aware of this fact, they might be able to wrestle a thermite reaction into existence - at least under my houserules.

Knowledge: Chemistry to see if he knows the proper chemical formula for thermite.

Why? Does your Shaman have to do a Knowledge: Anatomy to cast a healing spell? Does your mage have to do Knowledge: Optics to cast an illusion spell?

Because you're trying to subvert a known law of magic: Fire Does Not Work Under Water. Therefor you need to know something about chemistry in order to duplicate the abnormal effect.

Also, Fireball and Thermiteball are different. Fireball MAY ignite flammable materials, and is subject to half impact armor for soak rolls.

I can guarantee you that a thermite fireball WILL ignite flammable materials, and many traditionally non-flammable ones (such as thin metals), and sure as hell won't be noticably impede by impact armor.

Or, to put it another way, you can cast a thermite fireball, but only if you're casting at like, force 20. Because otherwise your fire is nowhere near hot enough.

Arsenal p.171 "Underwater Magic".

Well if "fire" magic won't work under water, doesn't that mean that "earth" magic won't work in the open air?

air doesn't extinguish rock. also, the sensible temperature of water can't be raised over 212 degrees until it boils away(if contained, the vapor can be superheated), there will be latent heat build up, but the thermal energy will be used to turn water into gas and will diffuse through the volume of water. so if you're talking about the puget sound. thats a pretty big heat sink.

Unless the heat produced is significant enough to overcome the thermal transference of water. I.E. thermite (water can't shunt 4000+ degrees F of heat fast enough, a pocket will boil).

But we're not talking physics, we're talking magic law. Fire and Water are opposites, one destroys the other (at least in the hermetic tradition) so it is somewhat reasonable to assume that fire spells wouldn't work underwater any better than water spells would work inside a firestorm. Fire being a chemical reaction rather than an actual physical substance it's kind of hard to find an equivalent to underwater for fire, but air and earth don't have that problem. Both air and earth are physical things that can be engulfed by the other. And Air and Earth are magical opposites (in the hermetic tradition at least) so they destroy one another.

So...

If a mage standing on the bottom of a swimming pool can't cast a fire spell because he's engulfed by water, fire's opposite, then why would a mage standing on the top of a building (or on the ground for that matter) be able to cast an earth spell when he's engulfed by Air?

Water -> Wood -> Fire -> Earth -> Metal -> (Water)

What air?

5 element theory makes so much more sense than 4 element theory.

Oh yes, the destructive cycle:

Water -> Fire -> Metal -> Wood -> Earth -> (Water)

Except that in SR Canon, it's very clearly the 4 elements of Air, Earth, Fire and Water. There aren't wood elementals or metal elementals. Those would likely manifest as hearth spirits or forest spirits.

It might not be SR canon, but the theory makes more sense.

It is canon- it's just not Hermetic.

Wood is Plant, but Metal what would be?

so, in other words, no, or at least as long as theres a chem major in the group... or if you have a lienent gm.

and could i make a theremite ball spell, or would it just be easier to buy a shitton of thermight, and burn thekara/ bp for demolitions?

metal its a spell element so a guess you could change an earth elemental a bit to make a metal one.

probalbly earth id think, because metal is from the earth...


and would an earth spell work as you were falling through the air, if following the logic that fire and water are in fact oppisites, the awnser would be no.

We're actually not even talking magic law. We are, in fact, talking physics. Fire spells cannot be cast through water for the same reason lightning bolts can't go through dirt, or you can't cast sandblast through water either. Water is heavy, and stops things from moving through it a lot more than air. So sandstorm becomes mudsquirt, and flamethrower becomes stream of sizzly bubbles. This has nothing to do with opposing elements, because Shadowrun doesn't give a shit if air opposes earth unless you're a critter with an allergy. It DOES care that a bunch of magic fire being hurled through water will behave like REAL fire - because, being a physical manipulation, it IS real fire. That is to say the water stops your fire from moving through it by virtue of being thick and wet.

Or, if you prefer slightly more detail, 'fire' is really just the oxidation of sublimed gasses off of whatever medium is emitting the gasses. Pushing gas through water doesn't work too well. And even if you assume your fireball spell is a thermiteball spell, thermite pushed through water will not be coherent, because your unreacted thermite will rapidly get mixed in with water, and whatever thermite is reacting will rapidly run out of fuel.

The steam effect is unimportant from a game perspective because it's so short as to not do damage, in the same way you can't take damage from bullets that miss you and blow chunks out of the concrete behind you. IRL, you might get hurt from one of those bits or a piece of concrete, but in game, it's not worth modelling rules for.

Metal generally doesn't appear naturally, it's usually a manufactured substance. So maybe a spirit of Man:


It's a stretch I know.

Or we can take a page from Werewolf the Apocalypse and just conjure Electricity and Metal elementals.

so, are you saying that Iron, Gold, copper, tin, aluminum, and every other metal on the Periodic table is manufactured. and i BSed my way through chem... so theyed be tricked out shiny earth elementals. and as fpor electricity, you could write up a spirit of storms, or some such thing

He is saying that you don't just find pure elemental metals in the ground (though it can happen, it's pretty rare. These are called native elements)

You don't just dig iron out of the ground. You dig up magnetite, hematite, goethite, limonite or siderite. Then you smelt the iron out of it.

well, that wasnt really my point, the point is that the iron is still tere naturally, weather or not it has to be prossesed before hand is irrelevant , because the essence of the the iron is still there

In chemestry, yes.

But we're not talking chemestry, we're talking magic law.

i really dont think that magic cares if there arent pure iron depsosites, just that theres pure iron in general.

Earth is already its own element in 5 Element Theory: Water, Wood, Fire, EARTH, Metal

And no, I have no idea why metal. I didn't make the system, it just works better than 4 element theory (each element feeds off an element and supplies a third while being destroyed by the fourth).

Water feeds Wood, Wood feeds Fire, Fire feeds Earth, Earth feeds Metal, Metal feeds water (or more accurately, "Metal flows into Water" in that when metal is heated by fire (Fire destroys Metal) it turns into a liquid: water)

Water destroys Fire, Fire destroys Metal, Metal destroys Wood, Wood destroys Earth (breaks it with roots), Earth destroys (absorbs) Water.

is SR4 run off of the five elemental theory?

and wouldnt fire destroy wood, because think of youre last camp fire, were you using steel, or wood as fuel, so logic has just totally destroyed the five elemenatl theory

Wood fueled the fire and when the fire burned out I was left with Earth (ash -> dirt).

When metal meets fire it softens, warps, melts, and is effectively ruined. Sure, when left uncontrolled Fire will ravage Wood and Earth and overcome Water (see: Forest Fire).

Water when left uncontrolled floods Earth, consumes Metal (rust), and drowns Wood (see: Severe Flooding).

Any of the five elements can be super destructive to the circle.

Fire destroying Metal works the same as Metal destroying Wood:

Take an axe (metal) to a tree (wood). You still have wood at the end, right? It's just not a functioning tree anymore.

oo, i see now. then could someone modify the fireball spell to be steambal, because its reall just heat? or am i going out way too far?

In theory. SR doesn't really have rules for it, but for every elemental direct damage spell there's an area affect version (despite how little sense "Lightning Ball" makes, it exists).

Thematically I'd allow steam balls as a visual effect of a fireball, but I still wouldn't allow it underwater (the rapid dispensation of heat into the surrounding environment).

ok, as a touch attack, only, like lets say your adapt is running around under water, and has elemental strike (fire) could you have it still do the heat damage?

Hm. Good question. I think I'd give the defender bonus dice to resist damage due to environmental conditions, but it'd probably still work

sweet

Or maybe said someone could just use a Napalm spell (Street Magic p.164-165).

I think you underestimate the damage potential of steam.

But that issue aside, why should standing water be anymore effective of a defense against magic than a thick sheet of plexiglass or a block of ice? All three are transparant (or at the very least translucent) and all three put a physical barrier between the caster and the target. But only water neutralizes the spell by virtue of it's nature rather than the barrier's rating.

It's physics. Physical Manipulations are REAL manifestions of elemental force, they do not obey 'laws of magic', they obey laws of physics up from a certain point. Once that fireball leaves your fingertips, it's real fire, and it's going to detonate in a horrid WHUMPH and set stuff on fire near it. A block of ice is going to take allergen levels (+4DV) of damage from the fireball, and it's not that sturdy to begin with, so you end up with a puddle of water. A block of ice should, if sitting on dirt, on the other hand, directly transfer current into the ground, which means it would negate an electrical attack with the same kind of penalty (+4Armor as non-conductivity) for being well grounded. You can't have a 'thin sheet of water'. A pool of water could heat to boiling by the force of the spell, if it was big/hot/highforce enough, but that's arbitrary to the GMs wishes. It's where physics comes into play. Do you have ANY idea how much caloric energy needs to be burned to heat a swimming pool?

It's a lot. Way more than the amount required to burn down your house.

At last we agree! Once that fireball leaves my fingertips it must contend with the barrier of water between me and the target. The fact that the barrier starts at my fingertips and extends all the way to the target making it most likely impossible for a mortal to cast a fireball of enough umpf to actually reach the target is understandable. Just outright declaring that by sticking my fingers into a bowl of water means I can't cast fire magic is not.

this is true