Okay, a bit of background. I just started leafing through Magic in the Shadows, looking at the spell design rules. I play a powerful magician, who employs a not inconsiderable number of unique self-designed/taught spells. I utilized SR1 and SR2 rules to create these spells, so I have a habit of updating their design(and, rarely, effects) to the current model of Shadowrun.

I decided that it's high time my character took up his pens and ink and wrote a new chapter in the book of "Spells Man Was Not Meant To Know", using the Magic in the Shadows, Shadowrun 3rd Edition, spell creation rules. SR2 brought him nifty things like Thermal Dampening and Clobber(think: Area Effect Clout + Knockdown). SR3's spell creation rules are like a Pandora's box, but there's no hope in there.

See, I thought it was a misprint. I mean, "Affects Initiative" applying to Health and Manipulation categories? But I checked, and indeed the effect is listed in all relevent spots as applying to both. What's a man to do? Make what's essentially a kinetic energy version of Improved Reflexes, but more horrifying, basically D&D's Haste manifesting on Shadowrun's system like Cthulu rising from the depths? You betcha.

Let's start off with the basics(flip your copies of Magic in the Shadows to page 55).

Manipulation Spell;
Minor Physical Change(appearance, motion): (+0)M.
Physical Spell: (+1)M
Sustained Spell: (+2)M
Affects Initiative: (+2)S
Affects Initiative: (+2)D

The first series is pretty self-explanatory, the last two are for +1d6 Initiative, and +1 Reaction per 2 successes(maximum successes equal to Force). Its range as-listed is LOS.

Being that it requires fine manipulation, the TN# is the higher of the two for telekinetic/transformation manipulation spells. 6. Compare that to Increase Reaction or Increase Reflexes, with a TN# equal to Reaction(which, to be fair, might be lower exept with monsters who would probably be the majority creating spells like this).

This is not only possible, it only involved connecting dots in the list of spell options. I haven't even gone crazy, and decided to make it Caster Only{(+2)L}, and maybe after that decide it should grant +4d6 Initiative{(+2)D again}. As it's a kinetic manipulation, not affecting somatic systems like adept powers, cyberware, etc...? It should be compatible with individual abilities from the aforementioned.

How? Why? Should all knowledge of this be expunged from memory? Why'd the designers come up with this possibility and decide to lay a framework for it in the newer magic rules? I mean, sure, caveat emptor, GM beware, etc... can be argued... but it's all right there. This isn't complex new magic that needs lots of explanation, it's tinker-toys of components that are apparently interrelated.

Anyone's thoughts?

Oh, yeah, having done that? I'm moving on to taking advantage of the Massive Environmental Change(control weather, gravity) in the next spell. This must be how God feels when he's holding a gun.

Ooh, ooh, game time! I wanna play!

Reverse Gravity
Type: Physical
Target: 6
Duration: I
Drain: +1 (D) (Affects gravity [S], physical spell +1 DP, area-effect spell +1 DL)

This area-effect spell reverses gravity for one second for every success caster achieves, up maximum of spells force. Characters in the affected area "drop" upwards as if dropping normally. After the spell ends, everything drops back to ground, receiving damage as per dropping, see SR Companion. Anything that's bolted or otherwise permanently affixed to ground do not "drop". Characters can make a quickness test to if they can grab something before "dropping".

Sorry, that probably doesn't make any sense. Any one remember the acceleration when dropping something? Something like 10/m/s/s?

9.8 meters a second a second.

10 is close enough for government work, particularly when you're dealing with just two seconds or so of acceleration and then going to round off for Shadowrun rules anyway.

I not sure about your duration, since most spells are instant in effect.

Notice also that you only reverse gravity in a 6 meter sphere (or whatever your area of effect is. So really they achieve a speed of d=(1/2) a t^2

6 = 5 t ^2
sqrt (6/5) = ~ 1 second
so they'll fall up to the top of the reversed gravity well in about 1 second.

The keep going up for ~1 second during which the will cover another 6 meters.

Then thelly fall 12 meters in around 12 = 5 t ^2
sqrt(12/5) ~ 1.5 seconds.

What falling damage for a 12 meter fall?

You are better off just blasting most people anyway, 3 seconds is a lot of time to shoot the offending mage in.

[edit]
We'll ignore the possible effects of gravity shear, and what the rest of the universe might do about a reversal of gravity (so that matter repels rather than attracts stuff!?).

An area effect 'fling' spell might be what you are after instead, it dosen't have the problem with needing a non-instant duration.
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Just remember, Wireknight, the GM always has final say. Honestly, I applaud your creativity (as a GM) and therefore I would allow the manipulation version of Increased Reflexes that you detailed above. However, I would not allow it to stack with any other initiative improvements just like the original spell. So you could design a new spell that you like, but it wouldn't stack. If you design it to give you +4d6 then there is a benefit already in the spell. Besides, the initiative in SR3 caps out at 5d6 any way you slice it, IIRC, so you don't get higher than that no matter how much you cram into yourself.

Sort of a, "Just in case we forgot to forbid a combination in there somewhere" rule.

It wouldn't matter if you wanted to make it compatible or not. Most other implants and magical augmentations to Initiative specifically state that they're not compatible with others. So it wouldn't work with Wired Reflexes, Improved Reflexes, or Increased Reflexes at the very least. Boosted and Synaptic are about your only chance.

Likewise, if it didn't affect their minds, then the twitchiness factor would/should be a must-have for the spell. The body is pretty much reacting on its own, so it wouldn't be able to help but react to anything it perceived as hostile. That includes doorbells, being tapped on the shoulder unexpectedly, or someone coughing behind you.

Well, the major problem is that they all but said "Hey, make a manipulation spell that boosts your initiative! Impress your friends by adding more D&D shit to Shadowrun!" and didn't also coin compatibility rules. Pretty much everything in the initiative boosting spectrum has specified things they are not compatible with. There are no such incompatibility listings for this sort of effect. I dunno if, like with drugs, the lack of incompatibility listings means it can be universally compatible, or if some sort of incompatibility should exist. I mean, it's generating the effect from a completely different angle than any other reflex boost to date.

I do like the idea of it imposing Wired Reflexes type twitchiness, though. I was thinking either that, or a +1 to all physical TN# to reflect the same sort of effect.

Yes there are incompatibility listings.

Improved Reflexes (SR3 p. 169): "...and the increase cannot be combined with technological or other magical increases to Reaction or Initiative."

Increase Reflexes (SR3 p. 914): "Increase Reflexes is not compatible with any other type of increase to a subject's Initiative dice."

Though Wired Reflexes and Boosted Reflexes make no such incompatibility commet, the nature of all other magical enhancements suggest that it is impossible for the two to work together regardless of the flavor text for how it works. But technically, there is nothing to stop your spell from working with cyberware. Bleh.

Well, if the 'Haste' spell actually physically moves the character around, then that should take precedence over any other augmentations. I don't see how being any faster yourself will help the spell to move you around faster (compare Levitate which doesn't involve the movement of the character in any way). Also, if this is the case, then the casting mage should control the character's movement.

If, instead, you explain the spell so that it increases the speed of any existing movement it 'may' be feasible for it to stack with other bonuses. But imagine the TN modifiers when you move your arm like you normally do and it rockets off at thrice the speed! The only thing the spell would do then would be to create an out-of-control character, or (if he controls his movements carefully) conserve energy for the moving character.

I can, however, see the reverse - using Manipulation magic to 'slow' a characters initiative by slowing his motion. This won't incur a TN modifier in the same way, because he is still reaction just as fast - he just isn't able to move, so effectively it gives the victim more time to think about each action.

Well, "thrice the speed" is a bit dramatic unless I decided to make it do something crazy like add 5d6 to Initiative and boost Reaction by 1 per success.

I'm more interested in knowing if anyone who reads this board actually was part of the process that made this possible in Magic in the Shadows, and if so the reasoning behind it.

I'm against making a manipulation-haste spell at all - Why?

What does the spell _do_? It either is a transformatiion manipulation that modifies the targets' bodies so that they have faster reflexes, or a Telekinetic spell. A mental manipulation wouln't be particularly handy (You _think_ you are going faster...).

1) Transform - What do you think a health spell is? And funnily enough, there is already a health spell that does what you want.

2) TK - so the person sustaining the spell is forcing movement on somebody? At speeds faster than he himself can react? Nah. At best, even if the caster had Wired-3, you'd end up with a very speciallized high-drain version of Magic Fingers.

As for the anti-grav spell, I'd use (as some others mentioned) an area-effect Levitate or Fling spell, with a specific special effect.

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Hmm, thinking back to the 'You think you are hasted' spell...

Would that be an illusion spell? Playing with somebody's time sense? I could actually think of a use or two for that.

EDIT - To answer the question 'why is this possible?': The spell design system is nothing more than a set of guidelines to make defining spells easier. It in no way is supposed to be used without an eye for consistency and balance on the part of the GM. And Manipulation is the last-resort spell category. If a new spell fits in another category, put it there first. After all, _every_ spell could be designed as a Manipulation spell. That's why Haste -> Health spell, for instance.

Sort of a side note: Mages are not -required- to direct any of the spells they cast. For example Clarivoyance the mage need not be aware of even what or where the -subject- of the spell is looking at. Sure the subject of the spell is often the mage, but that isn't a requirement. With Clarivoyance if the mage is human without eye enhancements they can have a teammate with thermo or low-light vision be the subject of the spell so that dark locations can be scried. The mage is only the conduit for the mana (sustaining), but exerts no mental control over the end effects of the spell.

Another particularly helpful use of this technique is Skill Fingers where the mage doesn't have a Demolitions rank, but his buddy has 5+ Demolitions. The mage make the subject of the spell his buddy, who in turn directs the Skill Fingers to disarm the bomb from a safe distance.

EDIT: I think Skill Fingers allows this, as does Levitate. I don't have my books with me to double-check on that at the moment.

What's fun is a dwarf with a quickened high force, many successes gecko crawl. The little guy can skitter faster than you can run.

Anyone remember "Negate Strong Nuclear Force"?

Completely destroy a 6-meter sphere of matter, releasing a deadly radiation burst from the free particles, because this +1D monster splits the atom...

(I might have gotten some of that wrong, but it's 4 AM and I mucked up my medication. I'm not supposed to be thinking right.)

I have to admit I'm voting yes for allowing manipulation spells to affect initiative. Yes, this should require approval from the GM, but I see no principal reasons for disallowing it.

A case in point:
Imagine a variant of shapechange, one that in addition to changing the target's shape gives him/her +1D6 initiative. This way you can change into a beast that's not only stronger but also faster, with the higher drain code reflecting the fact that it requires more difficult changes than simple shapechange. Unbalanced? Unrealistic? I don't think so.

Transformation manipulations can turn one into stone. In theory, manipulation spell can turn target's neurons to gold, or "paint" his nervous system with purple and green stripes. In theory, it should be able to change it so subtly the overall effect, game mechanics-wise, will be +nD6 initiative dice. And since the spell changes the nervous system, and since cyberware reaction enhancers are parts of it, all cyber/bio/whateverware either prevents the spell from working or (if the spell is designed with said ware in mind) gets transformed for the duration of the spell. The one factor that determines the total initiative is the speed of the whole transformed system. It's useless to argument with "Hey, my wired reflexes add +2D6 initiative!" - when you're under the influence of the spell, those wired reflexes, paid for with essence, are (mostly) transformed by the spell into something different, and the old rule "highest boost applies" .. still applies.

I’ve already used an initiative-boosting shapechange-like spell - as a GM. The recipient was a gang leader, the magician was the gang’s mage, and the spell changed the ganger into a demonic-looking orc with snakelike skin (+2 armor), inhuman toughness (+1 Strength and Body), claws (stats as hand razors) and catlike reflexes (+1D6 initiative). Those seeing him simply thought it’s modifications and an illusion spell, so I can’t say what ideas would the players’ minds come up with. Is there someone here who can share more experience?

Sure Manip. spells can affect initiative. Try "Type R". The spell changes skin pigmentation on your forehead to create a "Type R" image. And everyone knows that makes you blazing fast. Just ask any kid with a Civic Si...
That was sarcasm, BTW.

There's a lot of things you can do with the construction rules in Shadowrun that make the standard gear look absolutely pathetic (especially with the cyberdeck and vehicle construction rules). The designers simply expect both GMs and players to be mature about it and use those rules to construct vehicles, spells, guns, and decks that fill a niche that standard gear doesn't.

Just because you can break the system doesn't mean you should.

What is essentially an annhialation reaction which, if I remember correctly, is about 200 times more potent than fusion per kilo of payload. Fun! I'm thinking that a 10' radius, while it probably would not blow the earth to smithereens, would probably kill most or all life in a sort of dinosaur extinction sort of theme.
Of course, it would make a big difference whether that 10' radius was air or lead, wouldn't it?

A convert matter to energy spell would be a nice way to get rid of an unwanted continent. Lets just hope that the Azzies aren't working on exactly such a spell to get rid of their troubling southern neighbors.

Side note: I *think* fusion bombs perform a 1.6% mass to energy conversion. I did some research on that once and thats the figure I recall, but I don't remember the source.

1.6%!? That changes EVERYTHING!!
Seriously, though, thanks. My numbers were vaguely recalled from HS physics, so I wasn't very confident in them.
Do you know where fission fits in with the other two big boys?