This spell was likely originally created by either a Norse or Japanese tradition mystic adept, or just a mage with a penchant for sword fighting, but has likely since spread and gained it's current name along the way.

[Edit] Updated to reflect the fact that the sword glows.

Why Charisma?

Is the Vorpal Longsword a separate spell (should be)?

Honestly, posting for my GM and it's his spell, but my guess would be that the traditions I mentioned are both charisma based
[Edit] I think at one point I may have suggested that it should be drain stat rather than Charisma, but that hasn't been incorporated at this time.


Good question, I would say it should be, I didn't catch that in my editing and formatting when I posted it. (Also, more likely vorpal greatsword)

An Elf did it.

Using Willpower would make it more universally useful but Norse and Shinto are indeed Charisma traditions.

Now for the numbers. It seems like this could easily be abused. A quick overcast and you've got a lightsaber. Granted, the lack of Str brings things down *compared to a troll*, but it's still a fair bit. Hmm.

Overcasting does nothing. The damage is based only on your Magic and your Charisma. This spell will only ever be cast at Force 1.

Oh, never mind. Net hits do add to damage. So potentially Force PLUS (Magic/2) for damage. That's a bit high, given that you could blow Edge on this one roll to make all your future attacks awesome.

Good point, though: is it too strong at Force 1? Better than many blades at Str 4-ish. At first blush, it looks pretty okay, but always consider the edges.

Maybe it should glow and/or hum, and so be very hard to conceal?

Why Magic for DV when everything else is Force based?

Official word from my GM is that it's due to the fact that in astral combat Charisma = Strength. Personally though I say the flavour works as well.



That is a good point that I hadn't been considered, however even then I've run the numbers and even at force 6 it at best matches what a physical adept can do. At higher force you get into the same problem that all combat and combat related spells deal with. Remember, even using edge you're limited to the force of the spell for hits.

I meant to bring that up with my GM, personally in my head when I see the spell it glows, although I don't know if he's decided that. I'll ask him later. As far as the low edge of it goes, at force 1 it's damage is only equal to a knife although with better ap than anything short of a monowhip, and potentially even matching that for an elf.



Could have gone with force, but wanted something that's a bit more fixed. At force for DV this could very quickly (as Yerameyahu put it earlier) turn into a lightsaber.

For balance purposes I recommend making the additional damage a threshold (similar to Improve Reflexes) rather then modify with straight hits.

Example:
1 hit : DV = MAG/2, AP = CHA/2
2 hits : DV = MAG/2 +1, AP = CHA/2
3 hits : DV = MAG/2 +2, AP = CHA/2
4 hits : DV = MAG/2 +3, AP = CHA/2
5 hits : DV = MAG/2 +4, AP = CHA/2
--- no additional benefits for more then 5 hits


or alternatively you could do something else, like increase the AP or go additional hit levels

1 hit : DV = MAG/2, AP = CHA/2
2 hits : DV = MAG/2 +1, AP = CHA/2
3 hits : DV = MAG/2 +1, AP = CHA/2 +1
4 hits : DV = MAG/2 +2, AP = CHA/2 +1
5 hits : DV = MAG/2 +2, AP = CHA/2 +2
...
8 hits : DV = MAG/2 +4, AP = CHA/2 +3

Just my opinion, but it would prevent world-ender blades.

Confirmed from the GM, the sword glows. I'll update the description next.

Also, this spell is strongly based on the [Element] Aura spell from Street magic (p. 173) with a few tweaks and flavour. Damage boost equal to hits is identical to that.

[Edit] With that said, I'll admit high force with high hits spells could turn this into a world ender blade, but no more so than they turn an already raw spell into an almighty conflagration (or whatever elemental effect floats your boat)

Why not have a thematically-changed Elemental Aura spell? Or heck, say the spirits you summon materialize as different weapons. I was in the process of writing up a post based on that...

To the first, because this has even more effect against a spirit, and beyond that is designed for a low strength mage to have some hope in melee combat provided they have a blades skill.

To the second... umm... oh yeah, because that would take a very specific tradition whereas the spell allows for broader use.

Hello, I'm the guy Raven the Trickster was posting Vorpal Sword for. The original concept for this spell was that a magically endowed character (most likely a mystic adept) could will his mana into an item that he would then wield against a supernatural enemy in direct combat. I'll admit that this spell could be amped to ridiculous levels, but their are other factors to consider. First of all, the caster would have to be in physical reach of his opponent. This spell can do very little against a mage standing on a ledge hurtling ranged spells at you, or a spirit floating in the air doing the same. When you are in reach, you'd still need to make a successful melee attack, this would be made more difficult do to the -2 for maintaining the spell. You could then use a focus or spirit to sustain it for you, but neither would be cheep and you might find the spells force limited by your focus or spirit. And then there's the drain. If you spend to much on your force, the drain could then add more negative modifiers to your melee attack. One thing I was considering was to raise the drain some more to deter heavy casting. I was also contemplating adding a threshold for the spell, but wasn't sure on what it should be.

Monafilament whip was always the traditional mage weapon

This spell is meant primarily against things with Immunity Against Natural Weapons. It would also inflict long term damage that could otherwise be healed by the regeneration critter power. Plus, I still think Glowy Magic Sword is cooler.

Cooler, yes, but wouldn't a weapon focus monowhip fix the immunity and regen problems?

Yeah, but the suggested glitch or more importantly critical glitch effects of a monowhip work against it in comparison to this.

A focus can be taken away from you, and this spell could be made available to a Free Spirit as well, unlike a focus. Though I'm not sure if that's a pro for or con against the idea.

On the one hand, this is different from [Element] Aura: no element. Elements are pretty handy, so that's a nice step *down*. On the other side, you're adding a little reach and AP (less than an Element, though). Seem fair-ish. I do like the Increased Reflexes-style idea, though.

I liked the enhanced reflex suggestion as well. The spells still young, and I'm just putting it out there because I think it's cool. I'm happy right now just to take as many suggestions for improving it as I can get.

Also, I know I've seen this exact concept here in the last few months. Try a search for the thread; no doubt there were useful ideas in it.

Nevermind, I went and found it for you. http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=31273

Thanks, I tried looking for the other spell like this one, but didn't have any luck. I'm logging off now, but wanted to add one more thing. My favorite part of this spell is also one of my greatest concerns. This spell is at it's most powerful, and thus it's most likely point to OP when used with team work. Instead of using the spell himself, the caster could use it to endow the weapon onto a buddy who we could say is an adapt with mad physical attributes and serious blade skills. The spell could also be over-casted and edge added to max out the spell-casting roll. As long as the caster can sustain the spell the swordsman could become neigh unstoppable.

Well, disallow casting it on other people. Done.

Actually edge dice aren't limited by the force of the spell.

My observation is that this is a seriously powerful spell, for a very low drain code.

Objection 1 (game balance...not pissing off other players)
If you can cast this it is not hard to do more damage than another character who has specialised his build to do melee damage, and you get this for just 5 karma. In addition the drain only has to be paid once when the spell is cast, potentially long enough ago that the drain has been healed. If in your game you don't have melee characters this is less of an issue. The argument about sustaining it is mostly invalid as very few characters have a problem sustaining spells (foci/spirits...)

Objection 2:
The limits of sorcery: Sorcery cannot create complex things, even a hammer is too much for sorcery to create. A sword is far more complex than a hammer. (If you are in any doubt about this: a hammer is lump of metal stuck on a piece of wood, look into the history of sword making to see just how complex they are) I realise that this is a sword made of mana, but that is just fluff: if it can parry then its real.

Objection 3:
The damage system is unlike any other that I have seen. As I can see it the base damage is effectively magic/2 + force of spell (actually the nett hits of the spell casting roll, but the two ideas are closely linked). No other spell does this much damage, especially with the AP you get as well. Not only that but then you get add the nett number of successes of the armed combat result (and you will get at least one). So you add damage from the spell casting roll, and add damage from the armed combat roll. Use edge twice and I think we are looking at something that makes a light sabre look like a plastic fork.

Objection 4:
As far as I know there are no sustained combat damage spells in the main rule books. There is a reason for this: the creators of the rule system realise just how broken that spell would be. I understand that you can create such a spell using the rules in street magic, but all such spells are subject to GM approval! I urge the GM to seriously consider this one.

My main objection is the first one, and the others are just supporting fluff. If there are other melee characters in the party this is important, otherwise less so.

If you were going to allow something like this, I liked the suggestion above that said treat it like improved reflexes: 2 successes gets you your basic weapon, 3 gets a bit better, but it caps out around 4..5 successes. This would encourage you to cast it at a high force, and increase the difficulty of sustaining it (more expensive foci/tougher spirits)

Also remember that you cannot sheath the weapon or put it down...

Shouldn't Vorpal add to the armour piercing instead?

It's not a combat spell, its a manipulation spell.
Just like the elemental aura spell line found in Streetmagic that add's casters hit to targets melee damage and also provides AP -half.

Fair comment, this weakens objection 4. Its worth noting however that Elemental aura makes already impressive melee specialists awesome, it turns a weedy melee person into a slightly better melee person. This spell allows a person with str 1 to do truly hideous damage.

Given this is a "house rules" spell, the GM should decide, and I think his decisions should be influenced, but not dominated, by how the rules system works (so pick a damage system like other spells) but also by the make up of the rest of the group.

As a side note I very much enjoy playing star wars, and Light Sabres are fun to play. I'm not sure that they are entirely in the genre of shadowrun, but again that is up to the GM. Why not make a tradition called "force"?

A thought for you about another way to make a light sabre: take a mono-filament whip, use a spell to make it be in straight line, add elemental aura and it now glows and the recipient is in a world of pain. You might even be able to make the spell that makes the whip be in a straight line permanent as it is a very minor effect.

Personally I would say that rather than pissing off a melee character this spell could do quite the opposite. Have the casting mage pass the sword off to a non-adept (or even an adept without killing hands) melee focused character and suddenly they actually have a weapon that can do something against a spirit or anything else with ITNW. Personally I think balance wise it comes down to this.

1) Is this spell the best option in every situation? No, even as a melee booster for a non-mage [Element] Aura is more powerful most of the time. The only times this is really a better spell is when you're using it to deal with an enemy with ITNW or possibly regeneration if you don't have a normal weapon that will defeat their regen.

2) Is this spell the most damaging spell in the game? Not really. Combat spells are force + net hits, which can be ramped up a lot farther than a spell based on magic/2. It does more damage on it's own than it's closest comparison, which is [Element] Aura, but it takes strength out of the damage equation so passing it off to an ork or troll blademaster would be less effective than boosting their damage with [Element] Aura, which also has better AP for at least the elemental damage.



My reading on this, and my GM agrees is that it's referring to creating a permanent object rather than a plane of sustained force. Practically speaking this spell isn't really any different in that regard than an Armor spell. (Actually in many ways it's very similar to an Armor spell)

As far as the lightsaber comment goes, the balance of the spell was worked very deliberately to avoid that as much as possible. A shadowrun tech lightsaber would have a hell of a lot more AP than this, although it likely would have about the same damage code as this can potentially have. As far as I know, the concept of creating a lightsaber never influenced the creation of this spell.

Balance aside, its just to many special rules and new effects for my liking. I can see similarly derived spells doing all kinds of bad things. (And as a quibble, why is it a physical spell if the blade is made of pure mana?)

A simpler, less troublesome solution might be to allow certain spirits to manifest as usable objects rather than in their normal form. The type of spirit your mage associates with combat spells would, for example, be able to manifest as a sword, the damage of which depended on the spirits force (and probably user strength- this is a normal sword, more or less, that just happens to also be a manifest spirit). If the spirit had other powers (flame aura, poison) the sword's blade could also have those effects. Services would be used up as normal - once per combat, maybe once each time it inflicts damage, however your normally handle such things.
Conjuring spirits who have this ability could be a new metamagic technique, explaining why it is so rarely seen. (If you do allow the spell, it might also be that designing or even just casting the spell requires a new metamagic technique, given its very unusual nature.)

If noone else had brought this up I was going to. This spell is like adding a teleport spell to Shadowrun - you can do it if you really want, but you're not playing Shadowrun anymore.

So lets do some examples
Magic/2 + nett successes, and we only cast this once so we can afford to use edge
Say magic 6, and 8 sucesses with a bit of edge gives a base damage of 11 with a bit of armour piercing
This cost us probably around 1 point of stun drain, which we can first aid away.

We now use the sword over the 5 or 6 combat rounds that we have in a typical not snafu-ed run

We now do an attack on an enemy and get 2 nett sucesses, raising the damage to 13 which is resisted by body, counterspell and a bit of armour (much of it will be APed...depending on foe). This cost us no drain, no overcast to get a high number and I can attack multiple times a combat turn.

To get that with a combat spell (which to be fair totally ignored armour) we would need to cast a force 13 spell...oh wait I cannot cast at force 13 as a starting character...so lets only cast at force 12, and use a nett success (which also increases the drain code). The drain code for a touch mana spell is f/2-1, but we needed to add another point of drain because of the nett success...so we have a drain code of 6. This is of course physical drain.

It would be challenging to cast the equivalent combat spell more than 2 or 3 times in the course of a run, and at the end of it you probably need a week in a hospital as all the drain was physical

So the important thing about spells like this is "how would you feel if an NPC hit you with it". This is the equivalent of a force 12 direct damage spell hitting you multiple times in a round. To be fair life is cheap, and I would expect similar levels of damage from the troll physical adept (who has designed his entire character around it, and spent 100s of bp) but for for the 5 karma for one spell it seems a little excess.

It is however up to the GM to decide for new spells.

I would remind you of the limits of sorcery, and if a hammer is beyond the capacity of sorcery, its pretty clear that a sword is.

Arguing with people just convinces them that are correct (review other dump-shock arguments: hardly ever do you here "yes you were right, I was wrong"). You don't have to convince me, just the GM. I am in the "anti making mages the most powerful people in the world camp". If the GM is happy, I hope you enjoy your light sabre. May the force be with you!

It seems more like a Soulknife's Mindblade than a Lightsaber, only if the Mindblade made the target do a Death From Massive Damage check every time they hit him with it and they received a penalty to the roll equal to the Soulknife's Manifester Level.

I would like to remind you two things:



1) This quote is referring to a rule about sorcery creating permanent objects, not the spell in question (underlined sections indicate the reference).

2) The spell in question has a duration: sustained.

Its kind of really clear. I cannot see the place where it says they are permanent, only where it says you cannot summon weapons from nowhere.

Anyway if your GM is happy go to it. Best of luck with your spell. I suspect you will have an awesome amount of fun with it, and that's what the game is about.

I come at this discussion as the player of a free Spirit PC in the game in which this spell is being considered. She is a magician in a group that has two melee-focused PCs. A number of conflicting opinions float around in my head about this spell.

1) This is a cool idea! My PC has no melee skill at all, and it would be good to add something to the abilities of her teammates. She is of the Norse tradition, once a Valkyrie, though now decidedly different as her re-birth re-molded her. So the idea of her learning this spell so she could put a glowing, magic sword in the hands of a great warrior is about as 'right' as it can get.

2) Danger? Just as with the [Element] Aura spell and other spells of its ilk, this spell would allow the generation of many Combat Rounds of damage for only one Drain Resistance Test. The precedent has already been set for magnifying a magician's damage capability in this way. That cat is out of the bag and long gone. And remember the cost to the magician's succeeding actions of sustaining a spell. I understand that this spell would supplant some of the natural damage a melee specialist of high strength could do, whereas [Element] Aura adds to that damage and also cuts down the protection of armor by half. Let's compare.

My PC can cast up to a Force 6 spell with only Stun Drain. At Force 6, Magic 6, assuming she gets the maximum number of hits allowed by the Force, with [Element] Aura she would add 6 DV to a melee attack by her teammate. Say, augmented Strength 6 to 8. That makes a katana do 12 to 13 DV plus Attack Test successes. Ouch. With Vorpal Sword, DV would be 9 plus Attack Test Successes. Not as bad, huh? Now look at a Strength 3 dude with a knife. [Element] Aura would make him 8 DV plus Attack successes. Vorpal Sword would make him 9 DV plus Attack successes. So there is an improvement in DV only for the little guys. Her Charisma is not so high, so Vorpal Sword would only have an AP of -1. The elemental effect of [Element] Aura can be countered by the appropriate armor modification, whereas Vorpal Sword's AP cannot.

The elemental effect of [Element] Aura also counters ItNW. Small weapons have little AP, whereas big ones have more. Vorpal Sword has AP dependent on the Charisma of the spellcaster, which could be a little or a lot. As far as damage and AP goes, the two types of spell appear to be very similar in potential danger.

There is a small stealth benefit to Vorpal Sword. That melee Blades specialist could walk unarmed with his magician buddy into trouble, or onto an airplane, and become armed when necessary.

3) Smallpox! To a spirit, any spell that counters ItNW should seem anathema. If the originator of this spell were to make his or her plans known to a spirit that can think for herself, that spirit might consider eradicating the source of this spell before it gets onto the Matrix and is unstoppable. No matter how cool it is.

Just a thought for the GM.

Again, spell isnt designed to create a real physical item, only a sustained magical force which can be used like an item. The spell is no different than a single-target indirect combat spell with a touch range except it adds some reach, and uses a different skill (blades as opposed to unarmed combat), and has no extra bonus of an elemental effect.

not sure if it was mentioned ... but with the spell being Physical its useless in astral combat

It's not supposed to be used in astral combat, it's mostly just one of the reasons that Charisma was chosen as the basis for the AP rather than anything else.

This isn't quite true as it pertains to magic in the setting. Combat spells don't last across rounds, for one thing, and they're cast using a mystical link to the target (even indirect ones).

Technically any spell counters ITNW as it's not a normal weapon. That said this allows a mage to put that capability into the hands of a mundane, which would be problematic for a spirit.

Yes, exactly. And given what we as characters know about the current situation of our campaign, you know why my PC would be worried. Scores of gangsters who couldn't touch her before would now be almost as much of a threat as the major players. Perhaps more, because now their numbers would matter.

My take on the spell: add a note saying that you can't add edge to the spellcasting roll, then it's good, but not broken. If you can add edge, you have your everything-smashing lightsaber, sadly.

That's breaking the core mechanics, though. The 'tiered' approach (like Increased Reflexes) works better.

First of all, I don't like it being compared to a light-saber, even though I imagined it as a glowing semi-transparent blade. The idea is that this blade is nothing more than an extension of the casters aura. A constant stream of manna flowing out of him and only molded it the shape of a sword. The moment the caster releases or ceases to sustain it, the sword dissipates. One good blow to the back of his head could cause enough loss of focus that the spell is dropped. Secondly, this is my third version of this spell, and I've entertained many other concepts on how to restrict its power. One was to make it a metamagic, but I didn't think it seemed like a metamagic. Another idea was to make its duration instant, take the net hits away from the DV and say the spell lasts for (net hits) combat turns until it must be recasted, but again this seemed to far from RAW. I'm also very tempted to make this spell "caster only", or take up that Improved Reflexes suggestion.

If being more effective against ITNW is the main goal I have a spell I made a little bit ago that could be handy.

Manipulation:
Soul Shatter
Type: M * Range: LOS * Duration: S * DV: (F/2)
This spell is cast on an object. That object gains the ability to bypass ITNW by the amount of hits scored on the spellcasting test.

Example:
Bolt casts Soul Shatter on Ragnar's war-hammer to help get an edge on the F7 spirit they are fighting. Bolt casts at Force 5 and gets 4 hits. Ragnar's war-hammer will bypass 4 points of ITNW, meaning the spirit will feel the damaging effects of the hammer at DV10 rather then DV14, but only for that object. The spell can be used on ranged objects such as bullets so long as it satisfies all other spellcasting rules (LOS on the BULLET, not the gun, etc).


Of course, this does not have anything of the theme you were going for and does nothing for the mage himself, just lets mundane attacks get by ITNW easier.

Yes, and I do like it. The one thing I'm curious about, is casting it on a bullet. How high of an object resistance would there be on a bullet? For that mater, wouldn't some special rounds be considered more artificial. I'm not trying to argue the spell, it's just that my first thought is the higher grade of manufacturing there is behind a bullet the less effective this spell would be. I figure that a bolt from a crossbow, or an arrow would get the most benefit.

Nope, you nailed it. A more complex bullet has a higher OR so would require more hits on say, SnS, then it would on regular ammo. But the fun thing is that the spell only reduces ITNW's power, it doesn't change armor ratings or AP, so even though the spell is harder to cast on SnS it would retain it's halving AP quality.

Oh, and it should read "Net hits" not hits in the spellcasting description. Working off memory I forgot all about OR until you brought it up.