Quick question everyone.

We just got done with a run where our shaman lifted a guy to about 25 meters up and dropped him. Does anyone know how much damage one would take?

...a starting phoenix shaman takes down a grade 4 hermetic initiat with bear form. (shakes head) Who says levitate person isn't a combat spell.

I think I read somewhere that all falling damage is base D with the power = to the number of meters fallen. FOF I think, so there might be something newer, but this is what I use.
However I categorize lots of big falls under 'screw it, you're dead'.
If you wanted to get technical, use the accelleration of gravity and compare it to a vehicle/pedestrian collision chart or something.

Well, it's been a while since I've done physics.

What's gravity? 9.8m/s^2 ?

If so, your shaman would be hitting the ground at roughly 15 m/s which is 45 meter per round. What's the rule in Rigger 3 for crashing at that speed (too lazy to check right now)?

There are newer rules that bracket falls into damage levels (2D for falling 2 meters? What asshole thought that was a good idea), but I don;t recall where. They've been brought up before, and you can search for them if you don't want to wait for a bookninja to stop by.

P46 SR Comp.

Do I qualify as a bookninja now?

Yes, bookninja.

Falling Damage Table (pg. 46, Companion)

Distance Fallen (in meters)

1-2 = Light
3-6 = Moderate
7-20 = Serious
21+ = Deadly

Power is half meters fallen - half characters impact armor (round down)
Now that's bookninja.

How long did that take to do? Levitation's rate of movement is Magic Attribute x Successes (limited by the spell's force) so (assuming a MA of 6) he could've lifted the guy 25 meters in one pass, if he'd scored five successes, and it was a force 5 spell. If the target is unwilling, they get to resist with either willpower, or strength, whichever is higher. It's possible that luck just went against the level four intiate, and the Phoenix was able to lift and drop him before he got a chance to act, but it's not something I'd want to try more than once because if I don't get enough successes to lift and drop him on my turn, he can cast levitate one himself, or toxic wave me, or whatever else he wants.

The levitated mage didn't know Levitate? I wonder how many Kg the bear form weighed and if they remembered to raise the TN for each excess 100kg?

The levitator could have been using a power focus to help increase distance.

It also would have taken roughly 2.25 seconds for him to fall 25 meters, plenty of time to do some elemental commanding, creative casting, or whatever.

Distance = (1/2) (Acceleration) (Time^2)

this gives him an impact speed of around 22 meters a second (80 kmh / 50 mph).

Some googleing says that terminal velocity for people with arms and legs extended is around 56 m/s (200 kph) which you would reach (without air resistance) in about 160 meters of fall.

(As an aside, reduced drag positions (ie, arms and legs not extended make your terminal velocity go up by a third or more)...

Sigh, and the rules are crap, as usual, the power of the falling damage should be proportinal to the square root of the distance fallen, not a linear comparison...

SG, do you have any little kids? You ever pick them up when they don't want to be? You notice how they somehow seem to double their weight when doing so? Its using your body to resist being picked up, lowering center of gravity, becoming dead weight, things like that.

None of which has any physical effect on your mass. Levitation is a uniform force applied, and no amount of twisting and bitching's going to make any difference if you can't grab onto something not affected.

No, not grabbing or twisting, weight felt. They FEEL heavier, its because they go limp. Unconcious people are the same way, sure, I can pick you up while you're standing there, but if you're unconcious, you feel a lot heavier, because you're not supporting your own weight in any which way.

Which, again, makes no difference when there's a uniform force applied.

Let's just call it a balancing factor so that when you go outside in Seattle, you don't need the kind of umbrella that will protect you from both acid rain, and plummetting trolls.

My question is this:
How the HELL did you get that kind of successes on THAT kind of target numbers.

Let's assume that you're not walking around as an astral beacon with 900,000,000 force worth of foci helping you out.
You might have sorcery(casting) at 5/7, hell maybe even in Manip to 4/6/8, and I don't know phoenix shamans, so maybe they get 2 bonus dice.

So, let's give you those 10 dice, plus 6 in the spell.

So, you're rollin 16 dice (takin the drain like the slitch that you are), and you're trying to nuke bearface up into the air, AND he's got no reaction (air elementals, levitate on himself, having his troll buttlover catch him, athletics to break his fall, etc.), then the situation goes a lil like this:

Phoenix: I"m gonna send his ass up into the air so that he falls and takes loads of damage
GM: how high ((insert jokes about you said jump, etc.)
Phoenix: bout 25 meters
GM: and your magic is 6 right?
P: yeah
GM: cool, so you need 4 successes.
P: cool, and what's my TN: ..... 4 plus his body/2 (what with the mass = bodyx50 and your TN goes up by 1 per 100 body thing)
GM: he's in bear form, so, its body starts at 10.... but he's in bear form, so he rolled.... but his wp IS 6, so that was his own TN, so, he only got 2 successes. so his body is only 11. your TN is 4+5.5. so: 10. ..... oh wait! he's a grade 4 initiate!
P: "Dreck..."
GM: so, he uses shielding. Now, hmm..... he doesn't like your face, he's got a sorcery of hmm..... how about 8... plus his 4 initiate grades, and Hell, let's say no foci. so, he shields himself for 12. your tn is 22, and he's rolling his WP (6) plus 12 additional dice from shielding.
SO! you roll your 16 dice, and I'll roll my 18. I need 6s. you need 22s.
Let's compare successes.
Phoenix: how many successes did you reduce me by?
GM: 4
Phoenix: Frag yes! I got 8 22s on my 16 dice! Eat that dreck Hermatic Bear fragface, one point for the shaman world!!!!
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.......

For some reason I don't see how this question is relevant.
........
Alternately, what they said about SR comp is what canon claims damage to be.
My group and I always figured out velocity, then used Rigger 2 (sorry, second ed player here) to figure out the crash damage to both the faller, and those that they hit.

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Thoughts?

The max TN increase for shielding is now limited by your init grade.

The base TN for levitate is 4. (So the final TN would be

Thankfully, shielding is persistent (can defend against more than one spell) so dumping your pool is not a complete screw job. But the the mage dumps his pool, that leaves him with so ability to actually cast spells, which is still a pretty good result.

The speed at which you can levitate something is magic x successes. So getting even one success lets you get him off the ground...

Right, the bone of contention was getting the grade 4 intiate off the ground and 25 meters up without him doing anything about it. As I said in my first post, it would've taken five success, and a force 5 levitate in order to do it in one intiative pass.

Actually 4 successes on a force 4 (magic 6 x 4 successes = 24 Meters).

Average weight for full grown bear - about 500 lbs, or 228 kilos.

TN for casting = 6 (+1 for each extra 100 Kilos).

Not all that hard to do.

Nothing was said about whether the Pheonix shaman had any spell defense left to use.

Being a shapeshifter shaman - he has to distribute attribute points between 9 attributes - 3 mental, and 6 physical (three physical attributes for human and three physical attributes for Bear).

I've used the same trick as a GM on PCs, dropping a troll from 60 meters - he lived, but only because the party mage cast levitate just in time to slow him down before hitting the ground. The Troll still have to shake off a 10D on half impact armor. Made a nice crater though

Oops, you're right, that's over the course of an entire turn, not just one pass. So now I really want to know what that bear did while he was being levitated. It's possible that he had no intiative enhancements, and had already gone when the Phoenix acted, and had not taken Shielding as one of his metamagics, and flubbed his resistance roll to the spell so badly that the Phoenix got the five successes (the OP said 25 meters, so that's at least five) he needed on his force five levitate to lift and drop him in one turn...

Possible, and not that probable. A better evaluation can be made when the OP tells us what hermetic did before he was dropped.

So Mortax, you have us all interested, do tell?
Explain more, clarify the situation, maybe tell us some of your stats, and if you know them, the stats of the opposed hermetic in bear form.
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Oh, and shadowghost: I'm pretty sure that it says that the HERMETIC guy had cast a spell to become a bear, not, was inherently a bear shifter. .... plus... it was the HERMETIC guy, not the phoenix shaman whos spell defense matters.
...
Just sayin...

You're right - I had that ass-backwards.... still, it'd be interesting to read the stats on both, and what force/successes the levitate spell had, what sort (if any) spell defense there was, etc, etc.

Next time have a spirit with the movement power on call. Much higher toss that way. 0=)

yuppers Ed, I completely agree with the absurdity of the claim that bodyx50 = mass, however, (realistically or not) in the spell description, it says to add one to the target number of the spell for every 100 kg (assuming each point of body weighs 50 kg). [this is in the spell description for levitate spells in the second ed. core book]
Now one must really question this granted, but perhaps what they meant was increase the TN by 1/100 kg, OR by 1/2 body.... but anyway, realism aside, it's what it says.

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Still waiting for a reply from the original poster.

Levitate person:
type: Physical Range: LOS Target 4
Drain: [(F/2)+1]M

Spell level six. Adding in magic pool of sum number I don't recall, I think between 4 and six.

Bear size: 500lbs (so about 230 kilos)

Target # is +1 per 100 kilos, I need either 6s or 7s.

The plan was not to raise him up 24 meters and drop, it was to get him the hell out of melee combat. The extra successes were a bounus, not entended.

The shaman had no foci. I me no like them. Did have one spell lock, increase init +3d6

Onl initiative pass
Shaman casts clout, no drain
Hermetic goes bear
Shaman levitates
Hermetic casts powerbolt, doing S damage.
Shaman drops him.
next initiative. (but not for bear)

Also yes, it was a hermetic mage who had a spell. Also, he was at target numbers from the shamen clouting him, getting shot, sustaining a spell, and something else I forget. He did try a powerbolt on the way down. the shamen took s physical. This was after it was a bit late, though.

Oh, and I reread the spell twice. I can't find where it says they get to resist, unless I'm attempting to levitate the item away, then they get a strength check. It says nothing about levitate person, which makes sense. I can't decide the elivator isn't going to lift me. Also, the spell is concerned about MASS. Hence it using kilos and not stones pounds, or newtons. Mass does not change due to your resistance. WEIGHT can, in fact it varies very slightly by altitude. If it was concerned about weight, then yes I beleave it should be resisted. However, mass stays constant unless someone shoots him with enough lead.

also, just to repeat, 2nd edition. Don't know if they changed anything from third.

Jeez, all I ask is what fall damage is and it creates a two page thread.
Would have responded soonner, but I have classes I have to go to. About 21 hours.
And yes, I said 25. It's a round number, it was actually 24. I am used to putting things into round number.

In third edition, will or strength can be used to resist a levitate applied to an unwilling target (whichever is higher).

Why did the hermetic get only one action before being dropped?This again might be a change from 2nd to 3rd, but the movement from levitation takes place over the course of a whole round, and if the hermetic had a +3d6 to his intiative, then it's pretty likely he had another pass or two, unless the Phoenix had a similar bonus.

Yeah, Levitate is resisted on an unwilling target... That's kind of a kink in this scenario. And that movement happens over the whole turn, just like any other movement.

The hermetic has a Shielding pool, usable only for shielding.
You say this is second edition, so he by definition has Shielding.
No other spell is being cast on him, (at least none yet mentioned) so even if he used all of his magic pool, he's undoubtedly using his whole shielding pool on your spell (+4TN/+4dice to resist) [The Grimoire, p. 45]
As for the resistance. yet again, you claim second ed.
"Manipulation spells that affect characters contrary to their wishes MUST be resisted. Willpower is used, and the casting magician must generate an equal or greater number of successes than the target for the spell to succeed." [Shadowrun second edition corebook, P. 156, directly under "Manipulation Spells", second paragraph]
It's cool if you go by the literal mass thing, instead of what the spell says, I understand that. but even still, they get to roll their will +4, against your spell, and your TN is 10 or 11. Not saying that it's impossable. Just making sure that you realize that if you succeded in this, it was by fluke, or mistake, as initiates REALLY don't go down that easily to spells. .... That or you're playing a campaign that is SO high-powered that I don't even know what to do with it.... but still, I find that hard to immagine.

2nd ed. does say to consider each point of Body=50kg, on a vehicle 1000kg.

Also, it was Magic rating * successes for "distance" (exact quote), and objects can move the full "distance" within one Action Phase. It doesn't mention a resistance test unless you are levitating something they are holding, that change is 3rd ed. However, under the general heading Manipulation Spells it states manipulation spells affecting characters contrary to their wishes are resisted by Willpower.

K, couple more things, I guess.

1. I don't know what reaction enhancements the guy had. I was de shaman, not the GM. The shaman did have +3d6, though. While the guy ranted at us I turned it on.

2. I think this was a premade from 3rd edition. So no clue on the spell defence. Also, we've been running initiation and metamagic different from 2nd. learneing all metamagic upon becoming a grade 1 never made sense, so we run that part more like third.

3. Never thought to look at the front of the manipulation section. I just assumed it would list it as resisted if it were right along side the spell in every other section. My bad. Guess that makes the "turn you into a small animal" spell a little less powerful. One of our players used that once, and it always seemed to good. That explaines it. Although with the pluses he had to his target #, as stated before, he would have needed 14s or so. On six dice.

4. He had another spell cast on him. Clout.

5. I see no where in the spell where it speaks of anything other than the targets mass. I still fail to see how my reading of the spell is not correct.

6. As far as 50 kg per point of body, this is just about as silly as turn to goo. I have a body rating of 5 or six, from the amount of damage I take. Acording to this, I should weigh 250 to 300 kilograms. I am not a troll. I weigh about 150 lbs. This rule also conflicts with cannon description of how much the "typical" members of each race weigh. We went for realism and made the estimated based off of how much a bear would really weigh.

7. So yes, the target number should have been higher. However, no one, GM included, caught it. So in the end, this is a bit of a moot point, and off topic from the original discussion topic. IE how much damage is taken from falling. I only included why I was asking cause I thought it was funny. Not to be called a lier. In the future, I'll keep my questions to the question at hand, and leave out the flavor text.

I am sorry if you took my comments as criticism, I thought I was helping defend you (see distance explanation.) I too would disregard the one point of body weighing 50 kg, maybe 50 pounds, but if everyone agrees on a number it does not really matter.

I did want to point out the resistance because it is more lenient than 3rd edition's adding the option of using Strength in resisting that spell. But there are too many times people are complaining about magic being too powerful and coming up with house rules when they are already overlooking canon rules to curb the situation.

Wasn't referring to you with the comment. There was another I was refiring to specifically. I apreciate your comments, actually. The people who were a bit hostile (or seemed that way) were the ones I was referring to. I've read almost every source book and novel, so I know the world very well. Rules for rollplaying though, that's where I'm a bit shaky sometimes. Sorry If you thought I was biting your head off.

And since I'm posting anyway, thanks to the people who posted the rules. They are much apapreciated.

Jeremy

I really wasn't paying attention to any hostility floating around in this thread, but from the way the thread drifted from the OP, it seemed that the prevailing query was, 'wow, this was could be way overpowering,' so we were trying to pound out the variables of just what happened, whether it had been a fluke of the dice, something being forgotten, what have you.