Hey all I want to ask and discuss on magic here, persifically on making your own spells at the beginning of character creation and In game spell creation. Mostly because I'm confused on the subject.

The guide in Street Magic is rather extensive, what confuses you?

In-Game, street magic is fairly clear and helpful (if game time prohibitive).

What do you want to know about during character creation period and such? Can you have one or two (custom spells) at the time of character creation .... Sure, if the GM says its okay and the formulations are worked out and determined to be within the scope of game balance. Might even work as good backstory creation (a former corp wagemage who left, or a street Mage who found a wagemages portfolio by chance).

All I know is I have yet to convince a GM to let me play a demolitions mage with a 'turn to c4' spell... as I see if if i can turn them into a limestone statue of Ca(CO3)... why not some explosive nitrate instead! Instead of turn to goo... turn to nitroglycerine!

That one always seems to get the veto... oh well.


Anyhow... OP you're going to have to be a lot more specific with your question. The whole section in street magic is very clear for most things. Of course you're going to have veto problems if your spells are too disruptive.. like above.


But for game time... I actually came up with a way to handle this in one long running power game... I made a second weaker ally spirit... force 7... with arcana and enchanting skills... The GM started to give me supply difficulties in reagants after it pumped out my second batch of orichalchum. Then I used it as an independent researcher when I needed custom spell formula. As well as started a sideline business talismongering custom foci.

Turn to Chlorine Triflouride would be more fun.

Let's see... Bad Rep, Distinctive Style, Wanted (every law enforcement agency in the known universe)... yes, I can think of a few appropriate things to do to a character who uses is batshit crazy enough to cast Turn to Chlorine Trifluoride.

There's a difference between turning them into limestone, a naturally occuring substance, and turning them into a highly processed synthetic explosive. Remember, magic cannot create complex things.

Petrify and Turn To Goo are already ridiculously broken. You can't dodge it, and you roll Body + Counterspelling to resist being completely neutralized for as long as the spell is sustained. As far as a single-target small-target crowd control goes, these are insanely useful spells. Making it so that you also could turn the a target's body into dozens or hundreds of kilograms of C4 is like letting a sniper rifle shoot nukes.

~Umi

GIMMEE!!!

Turn to goo... you have a new variant to abhor and terrify GMs with!


Seriously though... I've worked firsthand with hydroflouric acid in clean rooms (used to clean oxides and glass of semiconductor surfaces)... anything which produces clouds of it as a primary product... is some seriously scary stuff.


Umi... actually a lot of explosives and even high explosives have some very simple chemical makeups. Nitrocellulose comes to mind. Many nitrates are used in quite a few because the NO3 product produces two things... oxygen in vast quantities as self-oxidizer... and a triple nitrogen bond for N2 molecules which result causing a huge exothermic reaction making all the resulting gas very hot and energetic for a nice pressure wave.


Yes but think of the possibilities as the 300kg body 15 troll... who resists your spells so effectively suddenly gets converted into a MOAB (mother of all bombs)...

They don't even have to be single target! With the aforementioned make your own spell rules, you can easily modify "turn to goo" to be an AOE spell.
Though I wonder why nobody does "turn to gold" ...

OH MY GLOB.

Now I want to build a leprechaun. Except instead of my Leprechaun Gold disappearing after a short while, it turns into chunks of meat.

~Umi

That is one of the greatest things I have ever heard in my life.

Even better... alter it from LoS....

We'll name it "Midas Touch"

You misspelled "grossest".

~Umi

Always wondered... What happens if you jar someone turned to goo... or splash around in them, or make soylent green shakes?

Given that they gain a barrier rating equal to their body, it's a pretty strong goo . .

Yeah, with the barrier rating it's more like a structural or industrial gel, oddly.

That said, if you remove a goo-person's goo-head, and then un-goo them, they be dead.

~Umi

"Turn to Sodium", followed with "Hose".

That's a very good way to light yourself on fire, Pax.

~Umi

No, it's not. HOWEVER, using a temporary spell for such transformations does miscounted. Additionally, complex items are not complex compound. Fix the first problem with a permanent spell version. Fixing the second problem is unnecessary.

Um... making Petrify and Turn to Goo permanent would make them more broken, not less. Now the magician can permanently remove a threat from the fight, with no dodge and a trivial resistance roll, and doesn't even have to suffer a sustaining penalty afterward. Yeah, no. How about the effect lasts for a number of combat turns equal to the number of net hits on the spellcasting roll? Maybe also make the resistance roll Body + Willpower + Counterspelling.

And break the economy if it's still based on precious metals like gold. Turn your enemies to gold or platinum, hold till it's permanent, then melt them down into neat ingots and sell as needed. Better yet, turn them into diamond (pure carbon that's in a neat order) and chip off bits to sell as jewelry.

Why stop there? Since we're already being absurd, let's just create a Turn To Orichalcum spell!

What's that? You need Alchemy to make orichalcum? Funny, didn't they say the same thing about gold?

~Umi

Absurdity? How about psilosen, at four million nuyen a unit (however much a unit is).

See, this is the part where I laugh at the counters. If you turn a spell into something permanent compared to temporary, then the duration needed to make something permanent is involved. Oh, and btw, it is resisted. The spell design also has given targets and end-effects.

And for you other half-thoughts of Oricalcum and such .... Magic spells cannot create magical materials ... Which requires Alchemy and or Enchanting in Shadowrun. Dweomercrafting, the art of investing and or empowering auras, is not a spell-based classification in Shadowrun. Metamagic s (quickening, anchoring) hold auras and energies, and in 4thEd, one also requires enchanted things. The new(er) stuff like Psilosen, etc... Require enchanting work to produce.

That being said, transforming something such as one metal to another (lead or iron to gold), might actually be doable. But that being said, such metal will always have the aura of not being "real". I somehow feel that with everything else in security during a Shadowrun era, "False Gold" or anything else for that matter, will likely piss off governments, megas, dragons, the UTA, etc.. Ad nauseum.

Remember that whole "Bad Rep" stuff??? Yeah.... Nice try. My group did this a long time ago however.

Getting back on topic, I had my character design a personal flight spell.

Personal Flight Spell Drain: (F/2)-3
Type: Physical
Range: Limited Target (Caster only)
Duration: Sustained
Minor Physical changes

Effects: Allows caster to fly at 10 times faster than a levitate spell. Is it overpowered... maybe.

What's this Psilosen? Source?

Levitate is already a pretty reasonable speed to travel at if you cast well at a decent force.

~Umi

page 25 of Parageology

Not really. If you cast at force 8 and get 4 hits you move at 32. My character can run at 37 (Human SURGEling with Celerity). Normal casting (Force 6 and 3 hits) gives you a flight speed of 18. I wanted something that allows me to go and go fast.

RE: Sodium and Water: spells are LOS. Use a pair of binoculars.

Get cybereyes with vision mag... same effect, but less obvious

Or contact lenses. Remember, we're talking about a spell-chucker here. While even a mage sometimes finds cybereyes useful, if there are workable alternatives ... *shrug*

As long as they're optical...

Not overpowered to me. Not yet. What is maximum safe speed for a PC? What is Handling/Flying test pool for this? This one to me is fairly straight forward, and not too powerful. Curious on your drain math however.

Been considering turning movement to a spell...
Using hits instead of magic value as the modifier

It's overpowered... 10x hits is very overpowered especially with the rediculously large amount of drain reduction you stuffed on top of it.

You're a magician you have access to spirits... my mage could literally hit Mach 1 using a high force levitate paired with a movement power boost from a high power spirit.


If you need to move that fast... the answer is simple... cast normally... you should be able to get up to 25'ish without too much hassle for most mages. Then use a force movement power on you to get that up to 150. Now you're zipping along at ground vehicle speeds without even pushing yourself.

If overcasting at say force 10 is involved, and summoning a force 10 spirit (if it's that important...)... that could potentially move the mage at 1000.... that's faster than many of the planes in the game.

Alright I got this. Introducing way number seven of breaking a mage during chargen.

Requires high magic, four ranks in spellcasting, six ranks in alchemy (Both specialized, of course). Also a hacksaw. Day Job: Homeless Shelter is also helpful, but not required.

Turn to Copper / Gold / Mercury / Silver
Physical
LOS
Permanent
Multiple Effects

DV (f/2)+11

In two easy steps you turn a random hobo into a neopolitan of orichalcum materials just waiting to happen. Add some aqua regia, swirl around in a bathtub for a month with a few minor adjustments... you just turned a 160 pound bum into 80 pounds of orichalcum.*


*You may have to cast from inside a Valkyrie module.

Never mind I can't read apparently

O'Ryan:
You need to read the rules... you cannot create magical materials such as alchemical gold. That isn't just gold it's 'magical gold'. So while non-magical gold is pushing the envelope of game breaking mechanics... magical reagants you've gone run off the cliff.

Similarly you can't just take those ingredients and transform them into the orichalchum with a spell... that requires alchemy... and one full month of no life whatsoever to control the process.

And you need to both read my post and take it in the tone it was presented rather than being snippy.... and apparently read the rules yourself, citation to follow.

Step 1: Turn hobo into non-magical, non-refined gold, copper, silver, and mercury. This is the only spell, be it from one multi-effect spell (not technically legal) or multi-casting other spells at much lower drain.
Step 2: Recover from drain.
Step 3: Hacksaw the elements apart, polish and refine to turn it into a "radical" version of the same reagent. (Page 82 street magic - "Radical Gold" is a magical good, but is nonmagical in and of itself.)
Step 4: Use that thar alchemy skill I mentioned having 8 ranks in to turn it into orichalcum. This requires minute adjustments every 8 hours for 28 days. AKA swishing it around in a bathtub of aqua regia.
Step 5: ???
Step 6: End up with 6.4 million nuyen worth of orichalcum. Retire.


So you are correct - I said two easy steps, it's actually six. I will endeavor not to let you down so much next time.

I know it was tongue in cheek... just was bringing up that just because it's gold doesn't mean it's a raw reagent for alchemy. If you look on the chart in the back (p185)... you'll notice raw reagent gold... has a price listed which would seem to be to be higher than that of normal gold.

Enchanting 101... p79
Raw reagents:... a player can either collect the raw regents herself... see getting p79... or buy them from a talismonger.

p79:
"Magical goods re mde from naturally occuring materials known as regents. Reagents have a higher inherent concentration of mana than normal substances, but are otherwise identical to their mundane counterparts."

Clear evidence that 'mundane gold' and alchemical gold in it's raw/refined/radical state are not the same.

Page 80... raw reagants... "Most reagents gathered from the wild are raw reagents. By themselves, raw reagents have magical potential, but cannot be used to create magical goods. Magicians use alchemy to concentrate the mana within the reagant, creating a refined reagents... further enchanted into refined reagants..."


I'm extremely familiar with the rules for talismongering. I've done it a lot in play... from the gathering of reagents to the design and construction of assorted goods. To simply making rent during down time by harvesting raw reagents and refining them to make a fast buck or make my own ritual materials on the cheap.

Since I assume you're new... this is a great trick for a starting mage... start with an assaying kit.. so you can gather your own or craft your own fetishes, talismans, or ritual materials. Then you can start with a mother lode of raw reagents as well to use to craft your own materials and save a bundle if you're cash strapped and have time to do so at the start of the game.

I'm not out to insult you, i just figure a new posting account with a low post count is new to the game and isn't as familiar with the setting or the problems his spell suggestion has with it's base assumptions. That's why the rest of us were limiting ourselves to purely non-magical chemicals with nasty side effects just for the sake of being silly.

"Mundane" gold appears to differ from "alchemical gold" in the refining process.

"Because modern refining processes would ruin the reagent for magical operations, metal reagents are worked by hand or smelted and worked in old-style blast furnaces."

By turning the hobo into the raw ore - a naturally occuring non magical substance - and then refining his valuable valuable metal flesh with hand tools and the enchanting skill, you turn it from the raw ore into a refined and then radical reagent. This seems to fit with "The Limits of Sorcery" (Street Magic 160) which states:

"Sorcery Cannot Create Magical Items.
Foci, vessels, and other items imbued with magic may not be crafted with spells; such handiwork requires the hands-on efforts of an enchanter."

With that in mind it seems perfectly plausible to create raw ore and then use your own enchanting skill to refine that into a reagent. If not, the very same wording suggests that "hands-on efforts of an enchanter" could turn it into what you want.



I am new to the forums, not to the game.


Edit: The current cost of gold, according to the google, is ~ $1600 USD per ounce. In 2006, when the book was published, gold was ~$650 an ounce. In SM pg180, gold is 1000 nuyen an ounce. I'm unaware of anywhere that gives the cost of gold in shadowrun outside of the "magical goods table."

Edit x2: Even if I am 100% correct and it's entirely possible to do this in the game, I'm still not endorsing this suggestion! I just want that to be clear - I wouldn't allow it at my table, and I would expect another DM to slap me if I tried it at their table. RAW aside, it's clearly violating the spirit of the game.

I take the bit on page 79 to mean exactly what it says...

That 'reagants' are different than 'mundane' of the same for all grades. It has nothing whatsoever to do whatsoever with the refining process... though you could 'ruin' reagants and turn them into 'dross' losing their magical properties. I take that to mean most ores are unsuitable for talismongering and those that are somehow specially magical are always the result of some alchemical process. (be it natural or in the alchemy lab).

A better example... I've always taken it to mean... gold panned from one stream which has a ley line or domain (positive BGC) subjecting it to a natural alchemical process has rendered it into a raw reagant. While gold panned form the next stream over in the negative BGC is purely mundane, not subject to natural alchemical processes.

This view is backed up by numerous references in the fluff to certain locations being particularly good for collecting reagants even going back to first. Queen Euphoria comes to mind with it's introductory story of the coyote shaman heading to south america to 'poach' raw reagents from some corps turf.


The best you'd get is mundane gold ore by the reading of that text about raw materials and the ban on creating alchemical or magical items except via alchemy/natural collection. Transmuting someone into raw gold is about as far from naturally collected ore as you can get.


I'll note you're the only one making the claim they can get raw reagants out of a spell forbidden to make magical goods. You're also the only one making the claim any good can be turned into a raw reagant.

I do believe that if somehow nature can turn some ores magical and others aren't the process can be repeated... but it's not part of any known stretch of the rules published to date in any edition I'm aware of. That also doesn't mean the process is economical as it could require a process taking 10's or 100's of years... so it's simply a lot cheaper to mine and exploit natural sources.

So simple solution...

Take the Nonmagical unrefined hobo metals
Refine them alchemically to make a reagent
Then refine them again to make the Orichalcum...
Multiple refining required, so more than 28 days, obviously.

*shrug*

You can't just refine any raw gold. It has to be gold taken from unspoiled nature, and naturally infused with mana. That's why there are tests for finding and harvesting reagents. Your golden hobo doesn't qualify in the least.

~Umi

Well, yeah, I guess there is that.
Of course, it is trivially easy to "Find that gold in the raw that is quality enough to make a reagent." Easier than actually finding real gold in the raw, in fact. *shrug*

But if you actually look at the descriptions of the actiual materials. They are bog-standard metals, just hand harvested. So, in fact, they ARE just normal gold. *shrug*



What makes them inappropriate for magical practices is modern refining techniques... Not the actual material they are when harvested.

Not true.


* This is a Survival + Intuition (8, 1 hour) Extended Test, per reagent. Not a lot of characters have great Survival OR Intuition. And remember, this is only possible once you've actually found and gained access to an area of unspoiled wilderness. Such areas are often controlled by corporate interests for their value, or protected by local shamans seeking to preserve nature.

~Umi

So yuy bring the hobo out to the deep wilderness, THEN slap him with that spell. ;D

Should I be more worried about you chopping up hobos or the fact that you're arguing how make him worth more when he's already like 170lbs. of pure gold?

The drain is calculated as such:

Physical: +1
Touch range: -2
Very Restricted Target: -2
Physical Manipulation: +0
Minor Change: +0 (It's not changing the caster at all... just making it so he can fly)



1: Why is it over powered? It only affects the caster, can't be used as a weapon, and is much slower than your Mach 1 mage.
2: The Drain calculation is legit I believe.
3: I don't want to have to convince a spirit to use Movement like that.