I've been working lately on the concept of a mage who's main spell is Fashion, who uses a custom ranged Fashion spell for everything. I'm thinking on what limits this spell would really have, please tell me if you'd allow:

A fashion spell to convert arm-bracers into boots, giving +1 Impact to the legs and allowing another set of bracers on the arms.

A Fashion spell to make a suit of armor work like form-fitting Armor, reducing the Armor penalties by custom-fitting it to the user's body, or alternately to make other armors work together without a penalty like the various clothing-armors do. For instance turn a long coat into a pair of armored pants, thus allowing you to add another long coat without it being layering.

A Fashion spell to make an opponent's clothing cover his head with a hood that has no hole in it.

A Fashion spell to Turn normal clothing into Tres Chic clothing, letting the mage on a-budget-with-no-enchanting make some nuyen during his downtime.

A Fashion spell add camo patterns to clothing, getting the camo bonuses and simply morphing the pattern as needed for the situation.

Fashion does nothing to change the abilities or function of clothing, only their general appearance. They still have the same stats they did before the transformation. Creation or alteration of camouflage patterns and coloration, however, are fully allowed and easily one of the main points of the spell. You can also "disguise" it so as to appear to be a uniform or suit, but the Concealability for people to detect it as armor remains the same.

• Forearm Guards can be changed to look like bracelets, gauntlets, or armbands, but the benefit it provides is still just a +1 to Impact armor and must be worn on the arms. Concealability remains the same.
• Changing armor into Form-Fitting Body Armor will not work. Well, it might in some cases (Armored Vest with Plates into a FFBA Shirt, yes... MilSpec Armor, no), but it won't have the same benefits as FFBA, including the non-layered bonus.
• Clothing will not reach up and turn into a hood unless it was already a head covering to begin with. Changing a hat into a hood is possible. Adding a hood to a coat is possible, but won't animate and cover their head.
• Transforming clothes into Tres Chic quality is perfectly acceptable.
• Adding camouflage patterns is also perfectly acceptable.

It's a fine line, but camo patterns are simply alterations of the coloring - well within the description of the spell.

Changing a cotton t-shirt into a flak jacket is a little more complex. (imho)

-Siege

I'd require a Clothing Design or similar test to turn clothes into Tres Chic.

~J

The above is pretty much correct for the Fashion spell as it appears in MiTS; the exact specifics will vary from GM to GM, based on where they draw the fine line.

However, if you take the Spell Design skill, open up MiTS, and go for custom version(s) of the spell, I could see some of that coming into play.

Basically, I could see a high level manipulation spell not only altering the cut/color/make of the cloths, but to some small extent how protective it is, and to a greater extent how noticable that protection is. Stacking issues (arm gaurds, form fitting) should be left alone, theres enough ways to get high armor without adding one that potentially has no drawbacks and can be cast on anyone.

Totally off the top of my head example: You might get a spell called UberFashion that works like Fashion, but can alter the concealability and ratings. Concealability can change by 1 per success up to spell's force, but cannot lower it more than half the original or increase past twice the original. Ratings could change by 1 per two successes up to half the spell's force, but cannot lower it below 1 or raise it past twice the original.

My 2 cents.

Note that the fashion spell must be sustained for a time (like treat/heal), this is really what prevents it's use in combat, you have to keep sustaining it for a while (10 turns?). Most combats are over by then.

Allowing fashioned clothes to add a small bonus (+1 conceal, etc) becuase they fit perfecttly sounds fine to me though. Expect a few 'mage tailors' to be in esistence in SR. You pick out the cloth you want to clothes to be made from, then roll some out, concentrate and violla! Instant tailor made clothing. Then can change the shape and cut if fashion changes or you gain or lose weight. Repairs are easy too, just refashion them. Combine with the clean spell to get those pesky stains out and you are in business as a dry cleaner as well.

Want to look your best for that job interview, court appearance, or night on the towm? Wal kin gets freshly fashion clothing, a makeover, and a healty glow all in 30 min or less and for only XXX

My favorite Awakened character had a lucrative side-job as a mage beautician. She earned a lot of money doing "emergency makeovers" and dress making for various people-- teens on prom night, business executives in a rush to make that big dinner, and so on.

My big concern with the spell is that it *still* allows some huge loopholes. Back in second ed, there wasn't a limit on Armor, so this spell frequently got abused by, say, turning security-grade armor into a bikini. Now you can't do that as easily, but it is entirely possible.

Unfortunately, I'd slide it under the "GM rule of thumb."

The GM can provide some basic parameters to define the spell, but she has to enforce those guidelines and not give in to the "but it's not in the book" crowd when they start to bitch.

-Siege

I don't see why long coat fashioned into pants and worn with a long coat would not incur layering penalties.

I let the number of successes determine how nice it looks/fits. You may be going for tres chic and wind up looking tres hick.

Almost forgot-- She had Fashions as a knowledge skill, which most GMs let me use as complimentary dice for generic applications. It was quite handy.

cain, it's not possible to run any armor type into a bikini, in SR3, using the Fashion spell. the clothing must still cover roughly the same area as it did before the change. now, you could turn milspec armor into a body-hugging lycra outfit, no prob.

It'd still have the same exact Concealability and penalties, however, thus it would only be body-hugging in a bulky, armored kind of way that only superficially resembled Lycra. So its pretty pointless either way.

The long-coat to pants idea was based on the various armors in Cannon Companion. When you wear, for instance, a Sleeping Tiger pants, shirt, and jacket (I'm working from memory as my books aren't here) there are no layering penalties even though you're technically wearing 3 layers of armor, because the armors have been specifically designed to work together. It struck me as potentially reasonable, therefore, that Fashioning armor to specifically work together by changing a coat into pants would have a similar effect.

Hmm, would fashion be able to affect things that aren't technically clothes, for instance sheets of uncut fabric which will be turned into clothes? Or possibly riot shields?

Misfit Toy:
On what are you basing the assumption that anything Fashioned must be worn in the exact same position on the body as before? As I recall Fashion says it must cover the same area but I can't see why a shirt can't become pants, or FFBA a long cape.

Because the spell doesn't change anything about the clothes other than its color, cut, and fit. No stats are changed, and a shirt wouldn't change into a pair of pants because that's a radical alteration of the original item. Weight, Concealability, Armor Rating (and thus the area it protects), and everything else remains exactly the same.

The spell alters the fashion of the article of clothing, not the actual article. Just read the description sometime.

As for changing a sheet into clothes, no. You could change the sheet so that it becomes a more fashionable sheet, sure... maybe even change a king-size sheet into a twin-sized one (as that's an alteration of its "fit"). But it's still a bed covering in the end.

you'd have the coolest blanket-and-pillow forts in the neighborhood, though.