I have a character with mass animate, as it looks a cool spell. I am wondering what I can do with it, and so far have the following ideas. Are these legal? Can you think of others?

• Make a quick barricade by getting the objects to pile in front of you
• Making all guns move to the floor
• Force doors to open (what would I roll if it was locked)
• Make many interesting diversions
• Make guns point away
• Cause cars, helicopters, bikes to move
• Juggle drones

These all have to overcome object resistance and make force*2 vs str + body rolls (I assume a drone has str = body if not stated)

A barricade is doable, but depending on what's around and what you're defending against you would normally need a LOT of objects for any effectiveness.

Making guns move to the floor or point away is not legal because their form does not allow for it. It's the hand that drops/points the gun. You can have the gun pull its own trigger or eject its clip, but there's no way for them to propel themselves.

With doors if the GM rules that the lock is part of the same object then the door could unlock itself if the lock were mechanical but not (IMO) if magnetic. If the door has to break the lock then it's Force x 2 vs a GM-set threshold, which might be device rating perhaps.

Vehicles can be moved, but only in the ways they are meant to - cars can't fly, bikes can't sail, etc. You don't get fine control, however, so it's not at all like rigging meaning that tricky maneuvers are out of the question, or at least heroically tricky.

Juggling drones? Technically possible, but it would be more like ordering them to fly in a pattern that looks like juggling. I would agree to substituting Body for Strength.

The key thing to remember is that you are not creating spirits here, you're just(!) giving objects life.

Other ideas -

- Simultaneously ejecting all the pins on enemy grenades
- Disconnecting enemy air supplies
- Rotating cameras
- Controlling people by animating their armour (would have to be quite heavy armour)
- Animating ropes can be very handy, e.g. as a grappling gun

hahahaha! Awsome. No need for sympathetic detonations here!

So I love how some objects (e.g. rope) are allowed movement that they couldn't ordinarily make (e.g. "flying") while other items (e.g. guns) aren't.

Make up your bloody mind.

A) It's not easy to remove the pin from a grenade. It takes quite a bit of effort. People who try to pull it with their teeth will be getting crowns if they survive. If you exert that much force on the pin of a loose grenade you'll end up lifting the grenade off the floor by the pin long before you pull the pin loose.

B) Grenades are virtually always stored in pouches that restrain the spoons. Most people have gone to pouches that completely cover the grenade.

Well...


Considering this, ejecting the pins might not work (as always, it's up to the GM). Animating ropes instead is a really good idea (like it!).

A rope would slither, like a snake.

Well called sir. The rope can move by means of its innate flexibility and possibly jump by launching itself from a coil, but I do concede the grapple-gun idea is off.

Good point. This spell seems a bit schizophrenic, refusing to decide between giving the object orders and puppeteering it.

How do you think this spell would work against drones?

I'd go with the last line in the OP. I.e. treat the drone as though it were 'held' and make an opposed test pitting Fx2 vs Bx2. I'd probably just roll once per command rather than once per turn/IP though.

If its held...thats not exactly "animate".

I would have though that if its animated you can move it around (using its normal mode of operation) change its orientation and fire its weapons. I suspect that the accuracy of the firing would be pretty terrible (treat as magic fingers? i.e. agility = nett hits, a minus 2 for being remote, and you probably get your skill).

Thinking about guns again: If you read the description the spell imparts limited flexibility and some motive power (for example round things can roll). So I would have thought that you could make the guns wriggle. Thats going to really screw up aiming...prehaps -1 per sucess, if they manage to hang on.

Thanks for the suggestion of ropes: I really like the idea of playing with ropes and cloaks.

No, what I meant was that the drone's resistance to the commanded motion should be resolved using the same mechanics as, say, someone holding closed a door you're trying to animate open.

That said, I've just realised something - the spell only works on inanimate objects, so this scenario will never appear. If the drone is online and mobile then the spell can't affect it anyway. I suppose you similarly couldn't use the spell to animate something being carried. Damn, this spell gets more and more complicated the more you think about it.

EDIT - unless it means 'inherently-inanimate' objects, so animating a statue of a bird that's falling is ok because the object isn't moving itself... Jeez, I just don't know anymore.

Well, it seems pretty clear.

This spell causes inanimate objects to move. The object moves according to its structure (balls can roll, rugs may crawl, humanoid statues can walk, and so on). The spell imparts a lim- ited flexibility, allowing solid objects such as statues to move as if they had joints.

So a drone that is offline is a valid target, or even a drone that was destroyed.

A rope could snap upwards (you know that thing where you jerk a rope up and then down and the force travels the length of the rope and the end picks up off the ground) and could restrain somebody (but it couldn't fly ), but for this sort of thing I really thing the magic fingers spell is better.

A mechanical lock could click open.

A gun barrel could bend, with enough hits Id say you could have them bend to face the wielder (would just jam the weapon though ). You could eject the clips, and you could flick the safety.

You were a-o-k up til here. You surely can't animate a gun to bend its own barrel unless it had a flexible-barrel design which, as you alluded to, would impede its core functionality so no such guns exist (to my knowledge). If this were allowed then one could similarly cause a pen to explode by 'animating' pieces of it away from each other and what you're left with is a make-whatever-I-want-to-happen-happen spell.

So it's not as clear as it seems, perhaps?

Well, the spell has this to say:

"The spell imparts a limited flexibility, allowing solid objects such as statues to move as if they had joints."

I suppose a bend at that angle would be a bit more than "limited" but it is certainly possible.

But yet statues can flex their joints.

~J

Yeah, I hate that being mentioned specifically because I wouldn't allow it otherwise. I suppose it can be hand-waved as having implied flexibility, like the focus and vision of the sculpter were imparted on the material in the same way that a written poem glows with emotion in the astral (does that still happen in 4th ed?), but in my heart-of-hearts I denounce it.

This spell needs a serious re-write!! Because if it doesn't explicitly impart flexibility and animation (I'm picturing the furniture characters from Disney's Beauty and the Beast) then it's basically no different than Magic Fingers- except without fine control. It could just as well be call 'Manipulate Object'.

I interpret the main difference between this and magic fingers to be that with this spell you issue a command to the animated object and can then turn your attention to other things while it carries out the order. Also, in some cases this spell would produce smoother (for want of a better word) results because you're not limited to manipulation by hands – for example, imagine trying to make a rug crawl using only your hands.

I missed this post and must admit I've been overlooking the "imparts limited flexibility" aspect. But then how does the spell/object 'know' that, for example, a statue's arm should bend at the elbow and only the one way?

I guess the only way to make this spell workable without a re-write is to not take it too seriously. It's ideal for humorous results (be they humorously brilliant or humorously rubbish) but to avoid unproductive and lengthy debates at the table perhaps the GM should stipulate from the get-go that his fiat here will have little or no emphasis on consistency.

Well I suppose you could explain it away by saying that the spell Imparts flexibility based on unconscious cues from the spellcaster in order to achieve the desire results. This might cut down on some of the silliness as that would also have downsides. /shrug.

Use animated furniture in order to try and destroy the world and call yourself "The Ottoman."

Nonononono. You'd call yourself Chairface. And then carve your name into the moon.

SPOON!!!

But there is no spoon...