My group mage has always admired Gecko Crawl, finally got it, and used it, and then I about fell off my chair.

The description says "Magic Attribute x Success in meters per turn" along vertical or walls, this to me seems really broken. The mage had Magic 7 and 6 successes, that's 42 movement!! Why couldn't you apply that to a regular surface is the logical question?

Seems lot a big boost to movement points for minimal drain IMO.

Any comments, experience or rulings out there Dumpshockers?

Yeah, it is a bit much sometimes. We just ruled that it allowed upto the 42 if the mage cannot move that fast normally, the mage uses their normal movement rate.

I just take the spell literally; the target has to crawl on all fours, so he or she has no free hands available to hold a gun, manipulate a fetish, or anything else they may need to do with their hands.

I also treat the target as if they were running (for purposes of determining any penalties) whenever they're moving using this spell, even if it's not at its maximum speed.

aleph society mage with gecko crawl and cyber tracking SMG mount

I wouldn't call it munchkin since Levitate has the same movement and isn't restricted to walls and no one's griping at that (I assume that Gecko has the same restriction about being capped by the spell's Force). I would call it silly to watch though, not to mention hard on the back to run on all-fours, which Humans (and presumably Humanoids) aren't built to do.

Why don't you use Levitate? It's darned useful yes, but I hardly consider it a game breaker, considering that using it offensively gives the opponent a fair chance to break away.

So many spells to get and we only play once per month, else they'd have it. One mage in the group, and he has a nice list of spells he wants, I'm sure that's on it.

I don't wanna make them take it at a lower force and the all-4's restriction sounds like it will help make it less of a breaker and more utility like.

I only said that 'cause you mentioned that they "don't like to get too over the top." If they don't want to go over the top, then why would they voluntarily do so? Divide the movement speed you want by your current Magic and take the spell at that Force. <shrugs>

One would say the word "Crawl" would mean a slower rate than walking. I don't have the rules with me at work here but I would say that the climbing rules apply and might increase that but not the running modifier otherwise we would be talking about a spell called "Gecko Warp".

I guess what I should of said was that we like to try and fix the problem some otherway before putting restrictions on Force, etc.

Thanks again for the insight all.

Ah. Well change it so that speed is (Successes) meters per turn to a max of Force, with the option to run with their normal Running Modifier applied. Magic Rating has no bearing on it.

Not that it maters much but geckoes move dammed fast when they want to. We didn’t name our boats gecko and chichac sp? (a white form of gecko found in Indonesia) becos we wanted them to be slow.

One way to improve it would be to make the speed successes max force with a running multiplier of magic. The no hands thing is really a restriction only to a small subset of magicians and if you don’t move for an action you could use the hand for gestures.

Also I would assume the spell causes a minor alteration to the recipients spine so you don’t threw your back completely out.

Edward

That's the problem with magic, it's really hard to accont for things like, say PHYSICS!!! There is a mention that complex climbing actions could be subject to a Climbing test, but that's purely a GM call.

I leave the exactness of the how it works as a gray cloud. I'll keep the all-4's restriction, maybe even letting one hand get free for one-handed attacks of sorts (at penalty I suppose). Which gets me thinking that, unless you have a Geasa that requires gesturing, you should be able to cast spells while still on all-4's.

Here is my opinion. The spell is not flawed for the reason that magic can speed you up in insane amounts. The "crawl" in the title just implies that you are in that position not that you are going in that speed. If you want a visual on how this spell should be portrayed, throw out physics because we are talking magic. Next, picture the horror movies with vampyres and werewolves. They use their "supernatural" powers to crawl or run on all 4's down the side or ceilings of rooms and hallways. That is the concept of the spell. Yes they can abuse the visual concept by out running someone down the street, but they look dumb doing it. This would undoubtedly make them the "shoot the mage first" target. By changing this spell you will undoubtedly push then to using just the levitate spell and being even better. But consider the fact that by making them use advanced climbing rules....most mages would just conjur a spirit and have them use the guard power or just catch them if they fall.

As has been said, in my opinion the best idea is to limit it like most other spells to maximum successes = Force.

Seeing as that's already part of the spell, that's probably a good restriction.

Side note 1: It says "walk along." Crawling is not mandated by the spell.
Side note 2: It says walk, if the individual loses contact with the surface, they fall.

Yeah yeah!

I meant to add ...

Limit maximum movement to spellcaster's normal movement rate.

Human: Q=6, M=6
No need to ever cast it above force 1, since natural walking speed will still be less than (or equal to) the max potential speed of the spell. Ok, spell durability reasons would make higher force desirable, but spell effectiveness would not increase.

Not all characters have a Quickness of 6.

Even so, I don't mind it being somewhat limited to what the mage could do on the ground.

Isn't that what I said?

I've been thinking I might allow Magic + Successes instead. This would allow some bonuses for using the spell and not allowing for huge bonuses for few successes.