Interesting. I though the number of servings for Create Food was force dependant (successes up to force or some such) and assumed Create Water was the same. If not, then I could see allowing an Area and Extended area. Though I would probably just make it force dependant. At some point one must say there is a reason for ritual magic and such. Weather magic is real in SR and groups are paid to perform it. Canon makes that profitable, so something like this cannot be to the same degree. But, I won't argue those points anymore. [handsoffsmiley]

But it doesnt really. Fireball and Acid and the like do NOT stay in existance. they appear, cause their damage then dissipate. It's even addressed in the book.

Actually it doesn't say they vanish, just that the spells effects last for 1 combat turn. Some of them, such as spells that use smoke or sand effects, are obviously permanent. You could just say whatever fuel the fire burns is used up in 1 turn, or the acid tends to wear out it's potency and become inert in 3 seconds.

Yes.

I agree that a permanent spell can't be modified to create over and over, so my trick won't work. I'd ask my GM to rule that an Area Affect Create spell should make more than the regular spell, or that an Extended version of the spell should create 10 times as much, but neither would be canon.

Thank you, everyone, for your suggestions and comments.

Now make it touch range and you have a +1(M) spell.

A good sorcerer with the spell (A dwarf with it at force 5 exclusive for reducd drain and a trauma dampener) should be able to create enough water to feed 19200 per day... If you tweaked that (higher initiative, albino gnome, higher force spell, add some foci, add centering) then you could just cast oxygenate on some of the 'lil buggers and throw them into a resevoir... They'd keep it at a reasonable level.

Filtering or Cleansing Metamagics.

That's why you quicken them instead. People with quickened spells don't seem to develop background counts after a couple of weeks.

Full contact golf.

Ah, Flog!

It may not be so difficult as you're making it out here. Consider: The USA has a population of around 274 million (I'm using data that might be slightly old here). Let's assume all of North America has the same population in 2060, just because I don't have any reliable population data on hand.

1% of these are awakened. That leaves us 2 million seven hundred and fourty thousand awakened beings, but a significant percentage of those will be aspected for conjuring or adepts. Some conjurors might still use spirits for things like purifying water but adepts are SOL for this particular operation. Let's say 1/3 of all awakened beings are unsuitable for this sort of operation.

That leaves us with 1,826,666 people with the power and skills to use magic to solve all the 6th world's problems. Suddenly finding 5,000 Karma doesn't sound so hard. I know Karma supposedly only comes from Shadowruns but that's just plain game mechanics, there has to be some way all those wage-mages and corporate bully-boys manage to learn spells and skills. After all you can also get karma for metagaming, staying in character, etc.

Let's further assume half of all those with the power and skills won't cooperate, they're insane, hermits, toxics, insects, whatever. Frankly I think that's excessive but we're being conservative on our math. We now have 913,333 magicians who want to help, and have the power to do so. If each one contributes 5 Karma (We have no need of 5000 each with so many) you have close to 5 million Force-points worth of quickened spells to use.

Now for the power generator plan. The Levitate spell has TN 4 +1 for each 100 kilos the object weighs. The object can be moved magic attribute* successes meters per turn, up to the force of the spell. Let's go with force 5 per magician for ease of math. We'll assume an object weighing 400 kilos for a TN of 8, not real easy but hardly impossible for most magicians. Most magicians will easily get 1 success at such a test and if they fail, it's only M drain and you don't have to quicken the failures. Moving the object up 2 combat turns, they then let it fall to turn a turbine of some sort.

This will produce 39200 joules of energy, or converted into English 28911 foot-pounds of energy per spell every six seconds. Over the course of a day each spell would thus generate 564480000 joules of power.

Converting this to Kilowatt Hours, we get 156.8 kilowatt hours per day, per spell. That might not sound like much until you consider that this is just one guy, burning the amount of Karma most shadowrunners seem to generate in a couple of weeks.

New York City (as it is today) requires about 36,132 megawatts a month. Multiplying our spell by 31 to represent a month, we get 4860.8 kilowatters. We thus need around 7,434 spells to handle the city's power requirements (This assumes each magician generates a karma of only 5 per year, and that each spell has to be renewed each year). Since New York (as it is today) also has a population of aprox 19,157,532 people, it should possess 191,575 magicians. Cut that to 1/6 to represent all non-eligible and unfriendly mages and we have 31,929 magicians. That leaves us with 24,495 to make magic cars, feed the hungry, and purify the land.

God I love math. I really do.

...no. Mages can cast as often as they can act. Their spell pool refreshes every 3 seconds, but sorcery only acts like a pool for spell defense.

Not gonna agree here. We're talking solving problems, not giving people xboxes.

And I don't agree with your magic theory either. They have prices for Quickened spells in MitS. They have corporations trying to harness magic to create electricity in TT. Obviously something goes wrong, or it would be working ten years later.

Yeah, but you have to look at the cost of solving the problems.

In my example, you're replacing something really expensive (Fuel-power plants) with something cheaper (Magic power plants). While it has a cost, you get something back that's worth even more. That's good business.

Whereas feeding the poor doesn't have any payoff for the one doing the feeding, ditto for vaccinating kids. It has a cost, and you don't get anything that's worth more. That's not good business, so it doesn't happen.

MiTS doesn't have a cost for quickened spells, though most people use the prices for Anchoring Foci. Personally I think Anchoring is a lot more dangerous, since you'll get hit with random drain just when you need it least.

As I said, Shadowrun is a dark gritty universe where good things don't happen. Given the world's conditions and description, there's no reason this wouldn't work. However the Hand of God would come down and mess it up if it was working, just to keep the universe dark and gritty.

You mean, Shiawase? They use fusion power, super cheap, according to canon.

I don't agree with the idea that free power would suddenly change anything. They'd still charge to deliver it and support the lines. The average wageslave has no worries about any of that as is, safe inside the arcology. In fact, free power is just one more step in removing the need for people. In SR, power is cheap. Your car can run off Solar-Cell, GridGuide, or methanol. The world is still dark because the people who buy it are just numbers if they are lucky.

Because, sometimes, you really don't want return business.