I was looking over the spell Analyze Device for a character design, and the more I look at it, the more difficult it is to use properly. First off it's a spell which targets OR, and is meant to be cast on primarily technological devices, which means you'll be throwing against a TN of 8-10+ most of the time. As a result, you'll be getting *maybe* two or three successes (if you're lucky or just spent scads of Karma upping your casting skill.) Since you get one point of an appropriate B/R or background knowledge skill per two successes, this translates to maybe an effective skill of 1-2, and this is for an unusual amount of luck and a serious amount of mojo. Maybe there's something I'm just not seeing, but it seems to me that this spell is useless unless you're playing a 300+ karma supermage.

In your experience, have you seen any other spells that are basically useless in most cases like this spell?

Well, thats for things like playing with a cyberdeck or somesuch. If its something relatively simple... maybe a pair of glasses, you could fix them without too much problem. Mechanical watches wouldn't be too bad, wind up toys, card deck shufflers, basic tools, things of that nature it works rather well at. Be the kind old guy who runs a toy shop, and fixes kids broken toys too. Kinda like catalogue, not a whole lot of uses for it, but it has some.

The idea, though, is that you'd know what a pair of glasses or a simple sword or other simple object was in the first place. On the other hand, I can see how that spell would be useful for archeologists... cast the spell on an artifact (the non-magical kind) or artifact fragment and you can figure out what it was actually used for.

My candidate for "useless" canon spell is Ignite. Between the 10 combat turns it takes to light something (reduced by successes, of course), the high drain, the low damage code, and the duration (only 1d6 combat turns), it's very rarely ever chosen by any mage I've known. The only reason I can think of to get it is that you can guarantee lighting an object on fire, but I'd rather cast a Firewall or toss out a lighter and cast Control Flame.

You're overlooking the -2 for familiarity with device.

But you are right, when I used the spell for a magician I played, it usually only granted 1 or 2 die. As background dice it gets further watered down, but as B/R it wasn't too bad.

In a sustaining focus, it would come in quite handy for electricians, mechanics, surgeons, bomb squads... Either where they would constantly be using it, or where every success really means something, where a single success could make a difference, or where time is of the essence.

A ritual team could get a large number of successes and quicken the spell.

Analyze device can be a lot of fun for investigation missions as well... It's just not so great for B/R types. Still a useful spell.

I'd put Catfall in though. Levitate does the same job better, really.

JaronK

Useless spells, huh?

Control Thoughts - self

Mind probe - self is actually pretty useful when you've lost your car keys and stuff. Hm.. I'm going to have a mage try that at some point.

Maybe you could control thoughts-self to quit smoking or something.

Freeze water is pretty useless as written. It looks like you need 5 successes to actually freeze it solid, so you need to cast it at a minimum force 5. Funny they mention frezzing pipes. They would need to be transparent pipes (how common are they - not!), or use the new FAQ invisibility to turn them invisible.

Light is another, since successes only counter darkness penalties, again limited by force. An elf casting this in total darkness needs 8 successes and a force 8 spell to not incur darkness penalties.

Just 6. Elves have lowlight vision.

The way tisoz interprets the spell (strict canon, I suppose), is that it doesn't change the level of darkness, just lowers the applied penalties. Total darkness is +8 to an elf, even with low-light. So a force 6 spell could lower the +8 to +2 (not exactly useless against things that need no light to fight).

Got another one/many: Enhance Aim.

So many detection spells are like that. Good on paper, lousy in practise. The real problem is how they're resisted. Getting four 6s to just duplicate the Smartlink bonus (of course, only in the limited range of the spell, so no sniping) is hard enough, but to then have everyone around you making resistance rolls to cut into those successes and worse, having other mages' Spell Defense dice permenantly pecking away at those successes for everyone you ever target ever afterward just makes the spell useless.

Oh, and don't forget you need a sustaining focus ot it's a +1-2 TN for everything else.

Hell, most Detection spells have the same problems.

Right, so without the sustaining focus (Minimum Force 4, 120000 with SI, and 4 karma to bond), the magician would need a Force 6 or 8 spell, and 6 or 8 successes (to counter the sustaining penalties) all vs TN 6 plus modifiers.

This is an NPC spell if there ever was one. Usefull for things like magic groups who can perform ritual magic (to get the needed successes) and then let the ritual sustain the spell for a time. Also useful for dragons, spirits and shapeshifters who can't or don't want to get the cyber.

Or for direct-combat teams that have magic users to spare (like Tir Ghosts, for instnace). With the appropriate Edge (and any character, PC or other, designed for this sort of job would take it) the second Enhanced Aim is just as easy to cast as the first. Toss your spell pool into it as appropriate (because it's a prep spell, not one being slung in the middle of a firefight)... then the mage(s) sit out in the van and sustain their asskickery-boosting mojo for their team-mates. Ditto with a Combat Sense spell. Or Detect Enemies. Or Stealth.

There are all sorts of Detection spells that are fantastic to cast on someone else, then just sit in a nice car somewhere and wait for the rest of the team to wrap up. Mages in SR don't have to necessarily go in with everyone else and trade body blows with the bad guys, and their spell selection doesn't have to mimic that. If you've got a player that's okay with taking a bard-like supporting role, and just remaining confident in the fact he's helping the team despite not claiming many kills himself? You can end up with some scary, scary, shooters.

Sadly, such a thing is more likely to appeal to a GM making a team of nasties to challenge the players with, so it's thought of as an NPC only spell.

Enhance Aim is one of those spells that, frankly, was really poorly thought out for its purpose, like Nightvision. Admittedly if you cast it at a high level (6 or more) then the odds of it being resisted by most targets are pretty poor, but even so it blows. And used at a "normal" sort of level (4-5) - walk into a darkened nightclub with Nightvision on and be unable to see maybe a quarter to a third of the occupants? Nah.

Generally speaking, with personal-effect detection spells like that most GM's I've played with have tended to discreetly ignore resistance rolls unless it's dramatically appropriate.

Doesn't Gecko Crawl have the same TN, the same Drain Code, and the same movement speed as levitate? Yet it's restricted to surfaces.

Gecko Crawl doesn't increase TN with weight, so if you want to carry several hundred kilos of gear up a building it's the best way.

~J

LOL. Now I'm getting this mental image of Spiderman carrying Jameson's car up the side of the Empire State Building as a prank.

But Gecko Crawl doesn't overcome encumbrance rules either...

Trolls can have it cast on them too, you know.

~J

hmm, a troll, hanging from the wall, holding a car, nice image...
makes me think of venom for some reason...

you could allso cast a increase (strength) or its cyberd variant if you realy want to go insane

think about it, a cybermaxed troll, with a increase strength and grecko crawl. i would start to worry about the structual integrity of that outer wall. that is unless the gecko crawls allso takes care of that. hey its magic after all

He'd have to be a pretty beefy troll to climb a wall while holding a car, since he has to hold the car with one of his hands.

Reminds me of one of the R.A. Salvatore books. These two dwarves are trying to ambush some orcs. SO they get his idea to put a boulder in a tree, and drop it on them. They spend a good hour getting it up there (boulder almost falls on the ma few times). When they finally suprise the orcs, the boulder kills just one.

Try gecko crawl with a wimpy elf with a sniper rifle.

Gecko Crawl, as we were saying

~J

Sorry, let me clarify:
With gecko crawl, the troll still has to climb the wall with just one hand, as the other is holding a car.
Have the mage with the gecko crawl spell levitate the car to him?!

They do not have to "climb". The spell says they can walk on vertical or overhead surfaces. If it did not say "walk", it could be argued you could drive the car up the wall. As it is, it could be cast on walker and anthroform vehicles and drones.

wouldnt that end up with a crumbling ledge and a fast falling troll and car?

DS