Magic Fingers as it is written does not preclude picking one’s self up and moving yourself, or does it? May seem a little silly but I can’t see in the RAW were you could not do this. Is it munchkin? Yes but do the rules preclude it?

I dunno. How much do "you" weigh? How much can the magic fingers pick up?

Strength equal to number of hits on your spell test. So unless you're really lightweight, or tossing a hugely powerful spell, probably not.

Maybe you can give yourself a pick-me-up, make yourself smile when you're down...

Just use Levitate instead?

Yes you can.
Because if reaction would apply, there would be a hell of other problems.
(Normally the strength of a mage is not that high to support magic fingers...)

What? Why would anyone do the reasonable thing?

It works for pixies, but what's the point since they can already fly?

An obvious option, but if you had Magic Fingers and could use them to simulate the function of Levitate, then you could have two spells for the price of one.

Which should clue you in that it shouldn't do that.

Properly applied, Magic Fingers could simulate a few other spells. An Illusion spell comes to mind...

C'mon, guys. Innuendo 101. Anybody?!

If the Strength of the fingers was high enough then yes, but being picked up by a pair of hands is very unlikely to be as effective as levitate. Are they picking you up under the feet, under the armpits, by the clothing over your shoulders, by gripping your waist? I struggle to imagine any approach that would not call for a DP penalty to the subject. Speed of movement would be pretty poor too.

Well, if all you want is levitate up the wall or down from a rooftop - can't see why not.
Actually, I'd allow that second usage case even for the Strength ratings not high enough to lift you.

Well, Levitate also does what Fling does.

Sort of.

Not really. Dropping anvils on people will work with levitate. Propelling light objects to high speeds for damage won't.

Not exactly like, but nearly so. All it's missing is the Strength = 1/2 Magic caveat.

How much damage can a light object at 20 m/round=24 km/h (Force 5, 5 hits) do?

Damage codes aren't given, but we have a precedent in the description of Levitate to refer to Fling.

Yeah I know that line but It still seems weird that for example pencils of playing cards at that speed should do damage. It's much easier to imagine using heavy objects and drop them, using the ranged attack test to see if the anvil or other object is on target.

If I get 5 net successes with a F6 spell to move a chair, it's going at 10 meters a second. If that hits someone, it'll hurt. If I do it with a pencil, a pencil going 10 meters a second creats a good amount of PSI at the tip (or heck, even the eraser).

That is only 36 KPH, unless it is designed as a weapon or hits in a really awesome part of the body a small object really wont do much. On the other hand 200kgs of hard object moving 36 kph would sting.

I guess. It comes out to about 33 feet per second, which is 1/1000 the speed of a bullet.

It should be considered that kinetic energy is 1/2*m*v².
So a bullet moving with half the speed has only 1/4 of the energy...
So your 1/1000 the speed of the bullet would leave you with 1/1.000.000 the energy of a bullet (if we assume same mass).

So then... what's the base DV of an item thrown with Levitate?

Depends upon how high up he was before he was thrown off the building.

Depends on the object, the speed and the angle.

From a game design point of view: Always less than the fling spell.

you have the speed as in the spell description, now ram the levitated guy against a wall/vehicle/barrier and use the Ramming rules

Can I use Slow to slowly fall from a building instead of as a bullet shield, provided I am a troll and not exactly lightweight? Or would you recommend Magic Finger or Levitate instead?

@hermit
Yes you can.

I always thought that was the intended purpose of the Slow spell, actually.

It is...

Along with stopping bullets and grenades (it's all right there in the spell description).

Point is: trollls weigh a lot. Assuming them to be 1,5 times as massive AND twice as tall as a human, we're talking easily 400 kg here. Add to that 100 kg of equipment and clothes, and you need 3 hits or the troll just falls. And that's assuming your troll is part of a one-man team. Plus, Slow is a sustained area, so you need to plan ahead and have good LOS, and are less flexible, unless you want to cast it at the last possible moment. Personally, I think Levitate works better.

Really? At 50 KG per Hit? The Troll now needs 10 Net Hits to be affected or he falls. Doesn't look like it works better to me.

Wasn't levitate at 200/hit?

Nope... 50 kg/Hit. Mass Levitate is 200 kg/Hit.

Deehrm...

Ooops... What the hell am I remembering then?

Ha, my memory works. ^_^

Other than the broken parts the only real benefits of slow are the magical instant slow with no damage parts and it hits multiple targets. The problem with levitate in stopping a fall is if you are falling X meters a second levitate would only cancel force x net hits meters per combat turn. Which works fine if you cast it early, not so great if you are trying to slow/stop the fall at the last instant. Trolls screw things up but a party of more human sized people can be slowed, where with levitate that would be one hell of a multicasting roll. It is a cool concept, but overall yes slow is just a sad levitate if you ignore the bad bullet immunity parts.

Actually that is not the case. After a successful casting you can move the object at a speed of up to Force x net hits m/Turnin any direction. The target will simple be accelerated/decelerated to the appropriate speed. Yes, this breaks the laws of physics, but hey it's magic.

All levitation-related spells break the laws of physics. All magic does, actually. It's why they call it magic!

Dakka Dakka, I think that's the point. Being *instantly decelerated* to the Levitate speed might be nearly as bad as hitting the ground.

It's the same effect Slow has, just a lot more versatile.

Indeed it does... Not sure why mine is failing me at this moment, but there it is.

Hahah, well, luckily, no, not nearly the same.

That's refering to the spell helping you survive jumping off a cliff. It's true "use" is in making mages immune to mundane damage.

And some magical danger. Blast, Sonic, Metal, and probably some other element types would be severely hampered by a 1m/sec restriction. Others would give the mage time to move out of the way (say, fire?)

I don't know. I might say Fire and cold wouldn't be affected at all, since it saps Kinetic energy. Blast, and metal for sure, sand and water as well. Possibly Sonic. Probably Ice. It all depends on if you think the energy is Kinetic, or something else (like heat, or lack of)