What canon spell would you think would be most appropriate to simulate clothing on a naked metahuman form?

This could be useful, for instance when a Mage ceases to sustain a Shapechange spell, or a unclothed Ally Spirit wants to materialize in it's human form wearing setting-approriate clothing.

Would Entertainment or Trid Entertainment be enough? Or would you need to go all out and use Phantasm or Trid Phantasm?

Umm, Create Clothing (drain code +1 S, by my reckoning)? With successes (up to force) giving you the number of people you could clothe, or the quality of the clothing (1 success = Rags or Scrubs, 2 successes = M.C.Hammer Pants and vest, 3 successes or higher = normal clothing)?

I would argue that depending on the character, the viewers might WANT to be voluntary for the illusion spell. ("Dear Ghost! Get some pants on, boy!")

Unstable molecues...! Oh wait...

OK, "Fashion" says you have to end up with a similar amount of coverage as you started with, so that alone won't do it. Perhaps make a custom Manip spell; there already exist spells to Create Food/Water aren't there? How about a spell to Create Cloth, wrap it around your body, then use "Fashion" to shape it appropriately? Or even better, combine these into 1 spell (and up the Drain accordingly).

Yeah, I considered Fashion and Makeover as being not quite right.

Making a new spell wouldn't be difficult. I just really wanted to use one already in canon (if possible), because sometimes GMs can be picky that way.

I would use trid Phantasm, as it is flexible and can't be picked up by technological systems, assuming you know what clothing you want and that you have seen them (only a blind person with no hands would not ) you can recreate it.

torz x

Yeah, that was my original thought, but the Drain Code's a bitch for that simple a spell.

And once you walk through an AA area with your trid phantasmic pants and a LS cop gets a lucky roll to resist the illusion, what then?

Worse, what if Bubba the Love Troll resists it in the barrens?

It's not illusory, but if you have something that covers your arms, legs, and head you ought to be able to Fashion it into a T-shirt and shorts.

Is this a geas?

~J

I'd just use Mask, either as the base drain for a resisted "Entertainment" or as is. Entertainment is voluntary, so the second they think "he should put some cloths on" you'd be covered in the "obviously magical" clothing you cast.

My real reason for wanting it is for an Ally Spirit. I dislike making the metahuman form that always wears the same clothing, and if I did, it wouldn't be considered 'real' clothing, so would be unaffected by the Fashion Spell. It is also not always conveniant to carry spare apparel for the Ally on the off-chance that it will be needed.

The obvious benefit to frequent users of the Shapechange spell is just a bonus.

I'd go with Mask or Physical Mask. Make it touch range for minimal drain.

You could create a limited self only version of Physical Mask that can only change the look of your clothing. The drain code wouldn't be too bad.

JaronK

Physical Mask makes sense. I just wasn't sure if it affected (or in this case added) clothing. I have no problems with using the Personal option.

Can Indirect Illusions even have a Touch range?

According to the chart in MitS pg. 55, they can.

So, in conclusion:

Create Clothes (Illusion)
Type P Target 4 Dur S Drain +1(L)
Creates an illusary set of clothes. Successes can be used to improve quality of clothing produced (1 success = up to Ordinary; 2 successes = up to Fine; 3 successes = up to Tres Chic.) To make Fine or Tres Chic clothing the caster must also make a Modern Fashion (6) or (9) Knowledge test, respectfully.

Create Clothes (Physical: Transformation Manip)
Type P Target 4 Dur P Drain +1(S)
Creates an actual set of clothes. Successes can be used to improve quality of clothing produced (1 success = up to Ordinary; 2 successes = up to Fine; 3 successes = up to Tres Chic.) To make Fine or Tres Chic clothing the caster must also make a Modern Fashion (6) or (9) Knowledge test, respectfully. Clothing created in this way is fragile: it has no protective value, and will only last for one day per Force of the spell.

Sound about right?

(Edit): Changed as per below conversation.

I think you make it too easy to make Trés Chic clothing, personally.

~J

Maybe stage it 1 success (ordinary), 3 successes (Fine), and 5 successes (Tres Chic).

Good point, though personally I think the "tough" part of making Tres Chic clothing should be the associated Knowledge skill test. The clothes themselves are easy to make; it's the design that's hard. So maybe the associated fashion skill test should be (6) for Fine and (9) for Tres Chic? That way Fine clothing is really really hard to default on, and Tres Chic can't be defaulted on at all.

Yeah, I checked and Illusion cannot be Caster Only.

I do think the Drain Codes on those two spells listed is a bit high, since Mask and Physical Mask are only M and +1M respectively.

Also, I'm not sure about the Knowledge Skill roll, as even the Fashion spell has no such need of any associated skill in clothes sense.

When they said that Thread Magic was being written back into the game, I didn't know that this was what they were talking about.

Completely overpowered. Think about it... you could use this spell to create a nasty, scary holloween costume... and then with a drain code of just +1(S), you'd have made horror threads!



JaronK

yeah, LOL!

We regularly survive taking a deadly wound. Happened to one character twice during an arcology run before something finally got him properly dead. Of cause he was a stealth samy with no concept of stealth.

The way I find such things go is you enter a high threat aria and get spotted by some guards, they open up on the point man as he rounds the corner, the rest of the teem blows away the guards before there next action the med tech and the magician put the point man back together. Happens every few runs. Perversely the smart opponents have les of a chance to get one of us down because they take there initial action to take some cover or some other tactical action and then we do the same. Then ether we all die or they all die.

If you want a character with the repair nanites and a ability to last for 2 years I would recommend a expanded reservoir in the nanite hive. Probably increase time and cost by the same multiple (1 year twice the cost in essence and cash, 2 years 4 times the cost in essence and cash), the reason it is so expensive is you need base materials with a longer shelf life, at human body temp. of cause then what if you need to be on mission for 30 months)

Edward

Screw that, I wanna know how he regularly survives deadly wounds!

Illusionary armor!?!

yeah - tell me I might need it against the dragon!!

torz x

Surviving deadly wounds is annoyingly simple. First you get symbiotes, nano or bio. Then you get a trauma dampener. That way whenever you take a deadly physical wound, your symbiotes drop it down to Serious (6 boxes). The trauma dampener then takes a box of that and moves it to stun, leaving you with 5 boxes, a moderate wound. First aid reduces this to Light without too much trouble, and magic can heal it the rest of the way just as easy.

See? Not too hard at all. Now back to magic clothes. I agree that you want the illusion most of the time, but some people might feel a little better about the manip because you don't have to sustain it. So I wrote up both. Do they sound good as currently written?

Could always make it sustainable, drop the spell and the clothes melt away.

I still say illusion would be bad. A sadistic GM would make a gazillion rolls and then tell you how many dozen people in the crowd start yelling "LOOK OVER THERE! HE'S NAKED!"

Or. . . You could have a spell that summons clothing for the caster. The spell may require that the clothes to be summoned are mysticly marked in some way and not be in the possision of another indivisual. This could have a material cost. This would iliminate the tres-chic problem and an ilusionalry problem. Also the caster can only chose between the clothing he has prepaired in his 'astral wardrobe'. It does not have much impact on combat, (the clothing may be armored, but he did have to actualy buy it) so it should not have a drain problem. Perhaps the number of successes can influence the mass of clothing that can be summoned (this would make many armored clothing harder to summon). or it could be one of those spells that the number of successes has no effect.

Off topic, Symbiotes stage damage down!! Wow! I need to borrow M&M agian and check that out, I thought they just spead up healing.

By canon First Aid would reduce the wound by one level, namely to Medium (three boxes) from eight boxes.

~J

Even without all that gear, if you take a deadly wound but have a trauma dampener, and then they use first aid on you, you're now at medium wound (3 boxes) and one box of stun. No mage in the world will have trouble healing you from that! And the stun goes away quickly enough.

JaronK

Hey, how about a Use Skill (Steal Clothing) spell? "Yoink!"

Hows this. Since we were talking about mages suffering deadly wounds and living through them but having to worry about magic loss. They already lost their magic when they got the trauma dampener and platlets put in to avoid dieing from deadly wounds so much, so now they're already lower on magic, so the point is moot.

Give your ally spirit a NAKED metahuman form. That way you can give it any clothing you want, including armour.

Really, I just want an Ally Spirit that can change clothes on the fly.

If you think pheromones are good, you should check out some of the Adept Powers in SotA '64.

oooo, i will take it to bed with me! ( I'm sure its around here somewhere)

Thanks!!

torz x