So I've been putting together a Psionic character, and I was picking out some of the more reasonable spells to use as "psychic powers" when my attention came back, as it occasionally does, to the odd little spell Ignite.

I'd never really understood the intended usage of the spell. It's low drain is nice, but cast at even moderate forces it takes agonizingly long to become permanent. Who has time in a fight to wait several combat turns for the enemy to catch fire, especially considering the lost dice suffered to all actions during the time spent sustaining the spell? Is it meant to be used stealthily, before a fight has even begun? Or is it merely intended only for non-combat scenarios, like burning down a building and the like?

Then it occured to me that maybe Ignite is intended to be an ultra low force spell? Well, okay then, so I do the mental math for a force two cast - meh, still takes two combat turns to become permanent, and then it only does 2F. Wait a minute, if it gains 1DV per turn... it's like a DOT that just gets nastier and nastier and doesn't stop until the target is dead or somehow extinguishes themselves. That could be really nice, except for the still-just-a-tad-too-long time until permanent.

Then I thought, okay, so what if it's cast at a force of one? Permanent spells are twice the DV, but the DV is half the force... rounded... down... wait... does that mean what I think it means? Force 1 divided by 2 is 0.5, which rounds down to 0, which times 2 is still 0? Suddenly the spell becomes an instant cast that starts out low damage but rapidly grows out of control if not extinguished quickly. Whoa! Now the spell is useful! But then, aww crap, I remember that the minimum DV is 1 anyway, so that ruins that. Then I realize it sucks even more. If you cast at force one, that limits the spellcasting tests hits anyway, and it'll be sure to be resisted.

So what the smeg is the point of this spell? It's got awesome potential for sheer runaway damage, especially over time, but you'll never get the spell off against a living target faster than you and your team can take that target down with practically anything else.

~Umidori

You could always hand it off to a spirit to maintain instead, couldn't you?

I guess that doesn't work as well for a "psychic" sort of aesthetic though.

You got me. It's kinda like the adrenaline pump, cool idea, but it just wont work

I guess you answered your own question. It's not useful against living targets, but for vandalism and arson the low drain is rather nice and the slow effect is not a problem.

You can stare at a tank for 12 seconds and light it on fire. That's pretty ok when you've got surprise on your side.

Actually, it doesn't specify the size of the target anywhere...
"So, Deus, you think you're pretty bad hanging out in that arcology, hunh? Lets see how bad you are when every single solid inch of it bursts into flame simultaneously." jokes, but yeah, you get the point.

It's basically and anti-material spell with the capability to cause chaos and confusion if you target it right.

Mage: I wonder...
Street Sammy: What about?
Mage: <stares at the moon>
Street Sammy: ...
Street Sammy: I really hope that red tinge is just air pollution.

~Umidori

Don't forget that the spell must meet the target's OR. On force 1 You can only ignite natural items. OR does create some silly examples though:
It is easier to ignite a rock (OR1) than jet fuel (OR2-3).
It's magic, right?

Another fairly useless spell: Fling.

It is exactly the same as Levitate, except that it sucks. It only works on objects up to [Force] kg (instead of 200 kg per hit), it deals thrown weapon damage derived from an effective Strength of [Magic / 2] (instead of dealing damage as chosen by the GM, which is typically considerable for a 200+ kg object flying at [Force x Spellcasting Test hits] meters per second), and it only has damage dealing utility (as opposed to incredible variety of levitation utilities).

Has anyone ever used this spell? It can't lift as much, the things it lifts it can't throw as hard or move as far, the damage it deals is almost always going to be less unless your GM is purposely trying to fuck with you, and if you miss you have to cast again and resist drain again to take another shot at hitting your target. And it costs the same amount of drain, and the same amount of karma to learn. What an utter waste.

~Umidori

The time it takes to become permanent can be reduced too. If you cast it force 6 with 6 hits on spellcasting, against OR2 you can use 4 hits to reduce the time from 6 combat turns (drain 3 x 2 = 6) to 2 combat turns and still start with 6 fire damage.

And, I agree that fling is utter useless, it doesn't even have the charm of healthy glow (That too does nothing at all). Additionally, Control Actions is a super-crappy version of Control Thoughts. The first gives control with negative dicepool on all actions AND the target can act freely when you are not issuing orders while the later is full control in all ways and the target is helplessly murdering his allies and then himself without chance to resist. Agony is a confusion/stench/orgasm/insect/hot potato spell but with 1/3rd the effect (imaginary damage per net hit (not force+ net hits) means you get at best a -2 dice pool modifier for a force 6 spell on a willpower 0 target while orgasm gives -6 to all actions... why?

I disagree about control action, is a very cool thematic "puppeteer" spells. Also, since the target can act freely when not commanded, it means you can area affect it without worrying about hitting teammates and innocents (the former could result in your untimely death as the street sammie shakes off the spell's effect, assuming you don't want to kill off your own party right now).




Also, as soon as you are affected by Control Thoughts, you don't do anything until commanded (except natural bodily functions), which makes it very suspicious and zombie-like. With Control Actions however you can suddenly have members of the HTR team suddenly starting to shoot their mage or whatever without any indication that something has happened.

Both spells are good of course, and Control Thoughts is great, but the flavour of Control Actions and it's relativily low drain makes it a good option. A real mindbender would take both (and Influence just to be on the safe side).

I just had an idea. Ignite + Shape [Material] (Fire).

Light up a building and let it grow into a proper inferno. Then cast Shape Fire, beat the OR1, and move around an unrestricted volume of flame at [Net Hits] meters per turn. With a good edge boosted roll at force eleven, you can surround yourself with a titanic sphere of pure flame that moves with you as you walk around at 10 m/s. Or half as fast at force six. You become a slow, lumbering ball of crispy fried death.

~Umidori

I like your style sir. But bigger question, can you actually do this?

Also, is the spell really unlimited in terms of the mass it can affect? If so could you then ignite a truly massive natural object...like the atmosphere or a mountain? Hmm mountain of fire...

Sounds like any volume is acceptable, and any shape is acceptable. My intuition would tell me that according to physics, this shouldn't work for fire, being that fire is a mass of superheated gases that must be constantly fed energy by fresh fuel, but rules, magic, and reality often clash. That said, the bit about the material remaining in a specific shape intrigues me. Since fire is a gas, can you compress it into a small volume? According to physics, that would make it even hotter and nastier. You could slowly (Net Hits m/s) condense a forest fire into a small floating orb of near plasma, that you could then maintain so long as it remains in line of sight. Upon ending the spell, the plasma sphere (whose form cannot normally be supported by the material) would explode outwards, returning to its original pressure and volume.

You could create an "atmospheric capacitor" with the Air version of the spell. Spend a day or two slowly sucking in atmosphere on the roof of a building downtown, then release it to cause an instantaneous explosion of nuclear proportions. To survive, have a friend sustain their own version of the spell that keeps a pocket of air surrounding you stable and safe.

~Umidori

One could easily argue that the force of the spell is a quite hard limit of how much destruction you can compress. That nuclear air bomb will just become liquid air and the expansion rate of liquid gasses is not that great without sufficient heat and the compressed forest fire will probably burn through it's fuel within seconds after you start to move it away from the forest.

In all I'd let creative use of shape element cause up to it's force damage of appropriate element. Your compressed air will be stun and knockdown and possible freezing damage if exposed to the target long enough. Keep in mind that liquid nitrogen is NOT half as dangerous as you might think. I personally have dipped my completely unprotected hand fully in liquid nitrogen (no BS, I have!). It evaporates so fast around my hand that it forms a protective layer of low conducting gas that prevents further freezing. It takes a while before this effect ends.

I just realized that Oehler was asking if the Ignite spell is limited, not the Control [Element] spell. Here's the info for that, too.



Again, very vague rules. You're affecting an unrestricted target, so presumably it can be any size and any material. You're increasing kinetic energy until the point of catching fire. If the spell succeeds and is sustained long enough, the object will burst into flame. It doesn't matter that burning steel requires ridiculous temperatures, the magic apparantly makes it burn no matter what, presumably by pumping enough energy into it that it simply must burn. So long as you beat the threshold, you can light anything on fire.

This seems to suggest an initial complete disregard for physics, and a could be ridiculously powerful if interpreted in certain ways.

~Umidori

You can burn metal, no problems. Take steel-wool from your kitchen and ignite with a match. It'll burn but not get consumed since iron-oxide isn't a gas it stays with the material (increasing it's mass) instead of evaporating like CO2 does. But, it will burn and look pretty. And, as mentioned in the spell. Once it is ignited it'll burn normally and in the case of metal that doesn't last too long because the oxide will block access to the inner parts of the metal object, effectively choking the fire.

Most materials burn with enough heat, only difference is that they might not be able to sustain a fire on their own, quickly fading, just like the spell suggests.

How big objects can burn is a trickier question... I guess the objects "body" (structure rating, etc) will simply resist all the damage if the object is big enough. A big military bunker (armor 32, structure 17) will still roll 33 dice to resist damage, effectively making it immune to ignite of force 10 or less. Sure you can ignite the moon but it's massive body will just resist the damage

Steel wool burns quickly because it is made of thin fibres. Try burning an I-beam structural support in a skyscraper. It would take a ton of energy (and in most conditions the steel would just melt first), but it actually will burn if hot enough, with full flame and everything. By the point you get that mass of metal that hot, it's not gonna burn out quickly at all: it has way too much energy. Normal burning would then constitute release of that heat into the surround environment, melting through or igniting everything the steel touches. The steel itself would melt as well, if it hadn't already during the period of being pumped full of thermal energy via magic.

These spells are just badly written, and it seems the GM has the final say on their effects, which is pretty terrible as there aren't even guidelines to follow.

~Umidori

I read the spell as being resisted only by living targets. Non-animate targets are just boned at threshold 1-4+, depending, not on how tough they are, but on how natural/pure they are. That armored bunker is so hot that it is visibly burning. Ignite is bananas.

This whole thread is pure monkey fuel.
I love it.


(Maybe the total borkness of Ignite is why the NAN won their independence. Threshold of 1 to light every visible bit of earth on fire. "Back off it Pale Eyes, or I'll stare at Nebraska and burn it to the ground!")

Shape Fire is still an Area Effect spell. The maximum volume is a sphere with a radius of Force m.

Of course, but Ignite is not a direct combat spell and does not ignore damage resistance roll. Even if you beat Object Resistance they still get to resist the actual damage using Armorx2 (x1 for elemental damage) and you have a table of typical Armor/Struture rating of materials in the barrier rating table to give a hint. Huge buildings, big vehicles and so on will simply buy enough hits to not take any damage at all.

Ignite is not capable of setting an entire city on fire using "entire seattle" as target. I see no problems at all with that part of the spell.

Where did you get that? No spell has such a double resistance. Instead of rolling against the caster an inanimate object poses a threshold to resist the effect. The effect of Ignite is that the object ignites and is consumed by the fire, unless extinguished. Only living targets get a numerical damage value which can be reduced by damage resistance.

BTW OR has nothing to do with the object's size, only with its complexity. Mount St. Helens is still OR 1 whereas a microdrone is OR 5

On the positive side, it is easier to use against a someone who is tricked out to counterspell Combat spells.

It's intent is to be a throw dagger spell which levitate really doesn't do very well since the weight of the object thrown would make the damage virtually non-existent. But it does suck though because they were hit by the stupid stick and decided on effective strength of magic/2. If it had been magic it would be an okay spell. Lets see throw a shuriken and you have a magic of 12 because you are epic bad ass. Effective str of 6, hits for 3 damage adjusted by successes. It is like they forgot that damage for all throwing weapons is 1/2 strength. So it gets 1/2d then 1/2d.

They could of gone with throw an object up to a weight of 1/2 magic with an effective strength of force. That way there is a reason to cast it at past force 4 and it is a somewhat effective thrown weapons spell, though like every other attack fails miserably in comparison to direct damage spells.

As for ignite, yeah it sucks. And yes not coming up for rules on effecting objects based on size is a failure of the system. Ignite isn't the only one though, Mask for example you could mask the Arcology if you wanted. I'm fairly sure this is not the intent and I would not let it fly in my games but hey them's the rules.

I find ignite is great for lighting cigarettes.

Or intimidation purposes, do you want your hoop set aflame? I didn't think so.

In some cases the LOS needed to ignite their hoop would be more punishing to you than their hoop on fire...

It does give a fun new meaning to "lighting a fire under their arse", however.

Sadly I do not think it would work for lighting a cigarette by the RAW. Well technically it would ignite, it would just be the entire thing and not the tip. An indirect combat spell is the way to go if you want to ignite part of an item.

Ok so get an anti-smoking fanatic to ignite someone elses cigarette.

Nah, you just need a custom version (Ignite Cigarettes) that takes an "only works on the tip of objects" limitation for reduced drain.

Or, y'know, use ignite on a random object and then use that as a match...

OR has nothing to do with size, I've said that three times in this thread already. However, you do roll damage resistance for all spells that are not DIRECT combat spells. They are the exception that ignore damage resist, Indirect combat spells, i.e. the elemental effect ones such as lighting bolt or fireball have first an opposed test to HIT like a ranged attack and then damage resistance is rolled by target. The main diffrence between ignite and flamethrower is that ignite make the target catch fire while the flamethrower _may_ cuase it to catch fire.

Direct combat spells (powerbolt, manabolt, stunbolt and ball versions of these) are the exception, not the norm when it comes to damage resistance.

doublepost

I'd say the main difference is that Flamethrower's a combat spell and Ignite's a manipulation spell.

Bah, no imagination amongst some people. What, no mage snapping his fingers and having a small, magical flame appear somewhere on his hand to light small objects with? For shame...

Flameaura's much more impressive.


Or one could design a new spell:

Flamefingers

Type: P
Range: Caster only
Duration: S
DV: (F/2)

Flamefingers is a restricted version of the Flameaura spell that effects only the extended fingertips or palm(s) of the magician casting the spell. It may set objects on fire if the caster's hits exceed the OR.

Or a called shot with a flamethrower spell at force 1, or if the GM lets you force 0. Indirect spells I can call a shot and hit a specific part of an object, everything else unless otherwise noted hits the whole object.

Thing is, the object continues to burn until it is extinguished or consumed. So, even if you ruled that the building only took [force] DV on turn one, that DV is going to increase every 3 seconds or +20DV every minute until fire teams come to put it out. If it takes them 5 minutes to get the FD out there and actively working to put out the blaze, you've already got every inch of the structure trying to soak 100+[force] DV over and over again.

Ignite as written is terribly, horribly effective at destroying games.

Can you give proof for that?
Indirect Spells are not the exception, they are explicitly ruled like that and don't use OR.

The two types of Combat spells are precisely worded where there is a soak roll and where there isn't. All other spells (like physical manipulations for example) do exactly what their descriptions say. So an inanimate object is consumed by an Ignite spell unless extinguished, if the spell achieves the OR. They don't get any soak roll. Living targets get one because it is in the description. There is no general rule for magical damage.

"Fire" is not a material. (Unless I missed a specific entry that states otherwise)

Actually, yes, you missed my posting the entire spell description on the previous page. Here it is again.

Please note the inclusion of fire among the given examples of materials and elements the spell may affect.

~Umidori

Eh it burns normally until consumed or put out. Burns normally gives the GM a lot of wiggle room. I can easily say a force 6 fire burning normally on plas-steel just goes out on its own. Just as a side point though the increasing in box box of damage is only under against living creatures part of the spell description. So a meta-human turns into a pile of ash if it is not put out, a building does whatever a building would do if it was lit on fire by a force X fire. Which unless it is wood, or you are throwing some really awesome spells means it goes out on its own IMO, making this spell a pile of suck.

My apoloies then.

You know, I've had a thought. Ignite suddenly becomes somewhat useful if you change it from a permanent spell to a sustained one.


So, let's do a trial run. You cast at force, ohh... four. You roll well and get five hits on the spellcasting test, only four count. Against a nonliving target, that will beat most OR values and cause the target to become red hot. Let's say you cast it on a street samurai's prized katana. The red hot metal is now dangerous to maintain a hold on (unless wielded via cyberlimb, which this particular samurai lacks). Stubbornly, he chooses not to drop his favorite blade and has to resist 4 Fire damage. He rolls 4 Body + 3 (6 / 2) Impact Armor and scores a lucky 3 hits, taking 1 box of physical damage. Despite this, he swings at his opponent, you! He rolls 5 Agility + 5 Blades vs. your 4 Reaction + 2 Clubs - 2 Spell Sustain as you attempt to parry the blow with your old-school mage's staff. The samurai gets 3 hits against your 1 hit, dealing 5 ([4 Strength / 2] + 3) + 2 Net Hit for 7 boxes of physical damage. You roll your 3 Body and 4 Impact Armor, getting a solid 3 hits, and you take 4 boxes of physical damage. Ouch! Fortunately, the red hot metal of the blade doesn't cause any additional Fire Damage, as it does not remain in contact with your body long enough to do so.

However, since the red hot metal of the katana is weakened, it is more likely to break in combat. In this case, let's say the GM decides that every time the blade is used to make or defend against an attack, the wielder must roll a single die - rolling a one results in the weapon being damaged or destroyed. In this instance the samurai rolls a 2, narrowly avoiding ruining his heat-softened blade.

Let's say that instead of the katana, you cast the spell on the samurai himself. He resists your 4 Spellcasting test hits with his 4 Body, getting an amazing 3 hits, but that's not enough to resist the spell and he is enveloped by Force 4 flames. These flames deal 4 Fire Damage, resisted normally, at the end of every combat turn. The samurai, suddenly hot under the collar, decides he'd rather not stay on fire if he can help it and spends a Complex Action to stop, drop, and roll, which the gamemaster decides reduces the Force of the flames by 3, with the downside that the samurai sacrifices his action and is now prone.

Let's run it at a high force now, let's say 11. Targeting an assault trooper's light machine gun, you get only 3 hits, but that meets the threshhold set by the high-tech gun's OR 3. It glows red hot, and unless the trooper drops it before the end of the combat turn, he'll have to stage down 11 Fire damage, which is nothing to sneeze at! Furthermore, the GM rules that the high spell force creates enough heat to substantially weaken the weapon. Interestingly, the assault trooper is a little bit suicidal, and decides to hang on to his weapon despite his blistering fingers. He opens fire on you with a full wide burst, but because his gun's barrel is almost molten at this point, the GM decides he loses the benefits of his Gas-Vent system. While you suffer a -9 DP to dodge because of the full wide burst, his malfunctioning gun causes him to suffer 5 uncompensated recoil, which is doubled to 10 because he's using a heavy weapon. You may not even have a single die to roll, but then again neither does he! You emerge unscathed! Then, as the Combat Turn comes to a close, the trooper suddenly has to resist that 11 Fire damage he ignored earlier. With only half his normal impact armor and a bad roll, he only manages to soak 2 points, for a whopping 9 physical damage!

If you had instead cast the spell on the trooper himself, your 3 spellcasting hits would have come close to losing out to his 2 body hits. The trooper again chooses to ignore the danger and spends his turn shooting, but gets tagged by one of your teammates for 3 physical damage. When the end of the turn comes, he manages to soak 4 damage, but that's just not enough to keep him from falling unconscious from an addition 7 damage, and then burning to death next turn.

A few other possible uses for New Ignite include setting off explosive materials, shattering standard glass windows via heat expansion, melting hardened glass to create openings, softening walls or door to make it easier to blow through them, making floors and other surfaces too hot to cross safely, instantly boiling a cup of water for your soy-ramen, and a whole lot else too.

~Umidori

So, in your experience, fires normally just put themselves out? I don't know about all that... I mean, they can fail to produce enough energy to spread, but once something is aflame, it likes to continue as it started.
From my experience, once you've got something like iron or steel oxidizing to the point that it's on fire, you're not looking at a happy, speedy resolution. Sure, you can rule that what the spell says happens, doesn't happen, but let's not mince words about what it is the GM is doing there. It's not wiggling; it's a total rewrite Nerf.

What we've got here is a poorly thought out, completely broken spell which needs to be re-written so as to not be either instant Apocalypse or Nerf burn.

I actually like this spell.

It is not great for combat, but it is great for other purposes. I think this is the intent of the spell. And yes you can go around making apocalypse but try it and see how far you will get!

This is not a spell that should be tossed around for fun, but be used only when you really need to burn through something.

And in my opinion, the line of sight means that you need to see pretty much all of your target, so focusing on an entire city would have to be area of effect, not line of sight. But I do agree it is difficult to set the limit on how much it can affect, this will have to be a gm call.

There are no area of effect spells but indirect combat spells in SR. Even for LOS(A) you have to be able to see all of the area if you want to affect all of the possible area of a sphere with radius Force meters.

There are remarkably few materials that simply don't burn. Even fire retardant materials do burn, but it takes enormous amounts of energy (heat) to do so. I've seen a diamond that was on fire (notably it was doing so inside a bath of liquid oxygen).

You have a object that isn't particularly flammable its barrier rating is 8 it has a force 6 fire in it. IMO it goes out because the force of the fire isn't enough to keep going. If it exceeds the barrier rating I might let it keep going, but against a lot of materials I'd be comparing it to FX2. And yes I have seen plenty of fires just go out., And its not a re-write nerf, I am not mincing words I am following the spell description. I don't let a force 1 ignite burn a citymaster to the ground, it doesn't make sense in gameplay or logical sense by how fires work. Like any other fire to keep burning the heat of the fire has to be enough to burn the materials it is in contact with if not it will go out and fairly quickly. It might take a while to cool down but it will go out.

And yes the spell needs a rewrite.

Just as a nitpick: a part of any automatic weapon's design is the cooling mechanism (even if just the appropriate amount of bare metal) to keep the barrel from overheating. A successful Force 11 Ignite spell will have greatly overcome the cooling mechanism. A red hot barrel is step one of a very nasty surprise if you keep firing.

You're still thinking about ignite as a shroud of fire applied to an object. That's not what it is. It's kenetic agitation until the object itself is so excited that it begins to combust. By its very description, the material in question, is on fire. It's not a fire applied to a target, but a target which has gotten so hot, that it bursts into flame. The material is the source of the fire. I guess you could compare it to the mutant power of Gambit of the X-Men. The mage excites the object's molecular structure, like some kind of psychic microwave, up to the point that it catches fire and ignites nearby combustibles.

Also, a citymaster would need at least a force 5 spell to surpass the "extreme" OR threshold of 4+, which is not that easy to pull off. Still it's too easy, especially for those "natural materials" like, say, a whole forest..
I guess just adding a "volume of affected material" qualifier to the threshold would calm the spell down considerably. Like +1 to OR/threshold for every m³ of affected material beyond the first. That way a tree with a volume of 3 m³ would have a threshold of 3 while a barrel of crude oil would have a threshold of 1 still. Meanwhile the citymaster with a volume of, say, 4 cubic meters of metal/material would have a near impossible threshold of 7 to set alight, though its tires would be a simpler threshold of 2.

Ever witnessed a modern highrise building of glass and steel burn? It is an awe inspiring sight... once something actually bursts into flame, it will tend to remain on fire until steps are taken to put it out... even modern buildings burn quite nicely once lit... there is generally enough materials to sustein a fire once it has been ignited...

And yes, soem fires do eventually go out on their own, but only after the consumables have been ... consumed... once steel has started to actually burn (ie. produce a flame), it will continue to do so in most circumstances...

Keep the Faith