That's the thing, Stahlseele: we don't even know *if* 'Goo' can flow. I'm not sure if everyone's reading the thread, but here's what I've seen:

1) Gummy Bear, Jello, or 'Ballistic Gel Person': Solid, but possibly wobbly. Cyber basically stays put, but the spell basically doesn't *do* anything.
2) Ugly Bag of Mostly Water: Tough membrane containing a liquid (possibly very viscous). Cyber floats around, and the spell lets your squeeze a person into a container.
3) Puddle: Slimy mess on the floor, with a pile of cyber in the middle. This is kinda the classic idea, but it totally fails to work, I think.

Yera (and all),

Good summary. I personally like #1, though in the past we've used more like #3.

BTW kudos on the Star Trek reference.

-D

I figured he was... scared stiff.

Bah dum, (cymbal crash).

I'm here all week.

Interesting, I always imagined turn to goo turning them into something like silly putty. Btw the two spells being discussed in this thread are two of my favorites.

And gummy samurai for the win!

But really, this spell is bagging for two more in succession, Lattice physical barrier, and fling. Tamanous favorite spell combo, Ghouls who walk the street collecting cyberware after dark!

Sadly, Turn to Goo is only flavorfully different than Petrify. Mechanically the spells are 100% identical, right down to the barrier rating the target has.

That is:
It is just as easy to remove cyberware from a statue as it is to remove from jell-o.

Yes, the turn to goo author was a retard unfamiliar with how all shadowrun rules up to that point had worked, your point?

Petrify and Turn to goo were in SR1 or 2 i think . .

I totally implied that, I totally did.

Cool...its time to make some money by turning sams to goo and extract their move-by-wire system.^^

If you think you can stick your hand through a Barrier rating 8+, go ahead!

(The goo has a barrier Armor rating equal to Body + net hits)
(the spell’s Force must equal or exceed the target’s Body)

Goo is as hard as stone? NICE that one high surface tension. It would still puddle slowly though.

As slow as molasses in Winnipeg.

That or its super mega viscose in either case once cule remove cyber by very slow movement so slow you might wanna get a drone to do and a spirt to sutain whiel you sleep.

IIRC Turn to goo was THE 1e damage spell to use because it specifically stated the body does not reform when the spell is dropped and it was super easy to cast. So it was like casting instant death on organic stuff.

for the fluff Turn to goo is one of the first spells mentioned in the shadowrun novels and I believe its used to kill a security guard.

Yes, yes it is. Hence my prior post:

I know but barrie rating can be discribed diffrently. It might be hard to hurt or shoot the goo but it still might by physicaly easlyer to remove things from failing that if you don't mind murder its still an ok spell for looting Just brake out the mono chain saw .

Again, it's not clear that Goo's barrier rating is for anything other than damage resistance. It's just one more way the spell is vague.

Heck, for all we know it has the same barrier rating because it was copy-pasted during development and the author forgot to adjust the numbers for Goo.




-k

SOme part of me thinks this is the truth the truth makes me sad.

Having already been blamed for trying to call the devs stupid (even if that wasn't what I was saying) I didn't want to say that. But it's exactly what I think. The two entries are identical except for the name of the spell and the adjective used.

See, *that's* what tells me that the Goo isn't rigid like stone, and that the barrier stats are for avoiding damage while Gooed. The real problem is all the *other* questions that remain. Petrify lacks these questions (mostly) because we know what CaCO3 does; we don't know what 'glue-like' means, etc.

Well, the barrier rating could mean you need to do that much damage to do lasting damage to the gooed person at all . .
so you shoot the goo . . the bullet goes through, you don't manage to deal damage to the barrier rating, the hole closes. no damage to person.
you shoot the goo with a BIG FUCKING GUN . . you do manage to overcome the barrier rating, stuff from the goo GOES MISSING, the hole DOES NOT CLOSE AGAIN . . damage to the person . .

I think everyone's missing the real advantage of Flesh to Goo:

You can add powdered Jell-O mix, give it a good stir, and release the spell to turn them funky colors.

Nah you stick a remotely deonated bomb in the mix they might have some health issues but you just stealthy stuck a bomb in his gut think that scece from dark knight but less obvious.

While its true that the barrier rating is for damage resistance, it isn't clear that the target can be "molded" as it were (e.g. you can force them through a 12" pipe without difficulty).

I think the best explanation would be that the goo is a non-Newtonian fluid. This means on sudden impact, it solidifies, but when handled slowly it can still flow. (And so it has a high barrier rating when you shoot or beat it)

Here a link to an episode of the mythbusters, where they work with something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GWhOLorDtw

I could imagine well that the goo from the spell has a consistence like the one in that video.


(But I agree too, that the problem was created by the autor not thinking about it, and just copy-pasting)

Will the spell split and keep separated parts still in form?

This is the same question, with the Shapechange spell, when you turn someone into a sheep and shear him. Will you get sheep's wool or just a few human hairs while the spell is still substained?

And if the wool doesn't turn back instantly: What if you drop the spell later? Will the bulk of sheared sheep's wool turn back to a tiny knot of human hair? What if it was already processed further to a pullover?

A more likely example: A mage turn himself into a deadly poisonous snake to gain deadly poison. He bites into a glass to tap his own poison. Will the poison work later, after he changes back? Or will it be just human spittle?

He bits an enemy directly, while being a snake. Will the poison work?

Do seperated parts turn back immediately, or do they turn back when the substained spell is dropped, or do they never turn back? A question that should definetly be answered in the spells descriptions, but isn't. Probabtly because the authors didn't think as much about the spells as we do.

In SR4 rules, the poison is technically a Power that you're activating, so I think that works fine. As for the rest, I'm as curious as you.

Indeed, it's a critter power, that reasoning is good. That means for poison, that it still remains, when the sustained spell is dropped.
Well, "giving wool" is not a critter power (I think), but I think that wool shouldn't be treated differently than poison. And seperated limbs should't be treated different than wool. That would mean that all seperated sustances from a transmuted being would keep their form permanently.

Of course different substances, could be treated differently, but that would lead to a total confusing mess of rules. And all without the author of the spells loosing a single word about it. They can't expect us to conclude if a seperated limb/hair/poison drop remains or changes back, if it all is handled differently.
On the other hand, the author surely never though about the problem.

Anyway: From this argumentation I conclude, that when you cut pieces out of the goo, and then end the sustained spell, the transmuted person will be missing some bodyparts, but the off cut piece will remain goo. Nothing you could reattach in a hospital.

And I conclude that the price for wool has dropped since the awakening

First off. I like the use pf petrify for a "stasis" like spell.

Using turn to goo to transport someone would work if you have a big enough barrel. A 50 gallon drum might work. If anyone inspects the drum they would find cyberware an such floating around... Unless the goo is opaque. Then the cyberware would be hidden. If you get them to stand in the barrel before casting there is less chance of damage putting it into the barrel.

I always have the thought. What's good for the runner is good for the corp. So as a player I would lobby to make Turn to goo as non-lethal as possible.

I always imagined turn to goo like the old "Green Slime" toy of the 70's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_%28toy%29

Turn to Goo doesn't turn them into a puddle. They still hold their shape (much like molded jell-o).

Tellin' you, just a touch of food coloring and it's the perfect disguise.

"Yes, that is a gelatin sculpture of a 200-kilo Troll. Yes, it is cherry. No, you may not have a taste."

How about a turn to Orichalcum?

Will a sustained spell continue to function even if the vessel is "destroyed"?

Turn to gold and melt someone into nice tradeable chunks would be nice.

Or just throw in a shapechange spell to get a giant gummy bear.

Make sure you disspell it before (s)he returns to normal, however.

"Why am I cuddly? WHY AM I CUDDLY???"

Thats exactly the question. Most readers will interpret "Goo" and "glue-like" as not being able to hold a shape that is standing tall. It sounds more like it will sink down to a puddle or at least a pile of goo.
At least with the words used in the german translation "Schleim" and "leimarting" you are sure that its flowable when you read it. (Although that doens't have to mean much.)

The problem is that the author didn't metion if the goo flowable or not. He probably though the answer was obvious.

IMO if the target is standing they'd slump over, laying flat on the ground. The goo-form won't have the strength to hold itself up, certainly, but it would hold its shape.

It's just that 'glue-like' is perhaps the least-useful comparison available. Molasses, water, gelatin, mucus, toothpaste, gummy bears, honey… almost anything would have been more descriptive.

Molasses or gummy bears would actually have been the most useful.

Glue like.. dried glue? or fresh glue?
Elmer's or Super?

Hot glue? Pre- or post-heating? Post-refreezing?

Methinks we're grasping now.

Goo has the traditional definition of a viscous substance.

A substance that has viscosity is liquid or gas in nature - viscosity itself is "internal friction." Goo would be considered to have a higher viscosity, so it would be thicker - think glue, or pudding.

Do liquids hold a solid state without assistance? If so, then we can go with the Jell-o mold. If not, then get a bucket or a drum.

I would imagine that 'Turn to Goo' would turn someone into a pile of sludge, similar to the stuff Nickelodean used to dump on kids who said the magic word.

A thick gravy or maybe tar.

What's the magic word?

I see what you did there

It still depends, Doc Chase; it's very vague, which is my exact complaint. Glue-like is almost meaningless, and goo can be a wide range of viscosities. It could be as viscous as pitch, in which case we'll be waiting a while for the target to flow to the ground.

A while indeed. There is a running experiment where pitch was poured into a funnel and let to rest. It flows down the funnel like a liquid, but very slowly : about one drop every 10 years...

PITCH DROP EXPERIMENT

Aha, yes!

But it still flows. We also know that the viscosity remains constant as long as the spell is sustained, so he won't dry in funny shapes, so the rate of flow should also remain constant.

It flows slowly when it's poured through a funnel, sure...but what happens to 200 kilos of pitch when you dump it from a bucket?

It also means we would have to use darker food coloring to make our theoretical subject look like pudding rather than a jell-o sculpture. This breaks my heart, but sacrifices must be made.

Actually, various factors affect the flow, but who really cares? We just need to make a choice, really. More viscous than honey, less than pitch. For almost all game purposes, I think it's fair to assume that Goo acts like this:

1. Target subsides into a pile (not a puddle, or a statue) over the course of about a minute or less. The pile spreads lower over time, of course.
2. Target can be placed into a container as a liquid (fills the shape).
3. (Trickiest one) Target maintains a single-mass cohesion (like snot or taffy); damage that beats the Barrier stats may or may not remove bits.

What do we think about these kinds of assumptions?

I like these assumptions.