I forgot about force. Amend that to "maximum number of bullets produced is limited by the force of the spell."

The biggest problem is that it sets a precedent that simple technological items can be created. When push comes to shove a bolt action hunting rifle is farley simple, as is a revolver, (assuming they don have a smart link or similar), create explosives would be another example (successes Kg of rating force explosives). If I can cast create bullet I should be able to cast create revolver, at witch point the combination becomes an infiltration package of unprecedented conceal ability.

Even without extending it to create gun I think you would find it gets more use from infiltration jobs than wilderness jobs.

And as fashion doesn’t need any knowledge of fashion to create very fancy clothes (just a good roll and a high force)and create food tastes better with more successes not with the knowledge skill “food science” other spells that create things logically wouldn’t need such ether, of cause this can be over ruled. Personally I would require the PR skill during spell design, not casting.

If I was going to do it I would have the target number OR+availability/2, or something along those lines. Drain is greater for bigger items until creating anything bigger than a scooter is beyond the realm of practicality; drain is likely about the same as create food for a spell that will give 1 bullet per success max force

And just out of interest, what do you define as abusing the fashion spell.

Edward

The issue with anything like create gun or create car is this. Take apart a bullet. How many pieces do you get? The shell, propellant, and bullet itself. So... 3 whole parts.

Take a gun, take it apart down to every individual piece, every screw, everything that isn't a solid piece comes apart, how many pieces do you have?

Same thing with a car, take everything that isn't its own piece apart, and you have a lot more than 3, thusly, it would be impossible for the mage to be able to make the entirety of either of these items.

Now, if the mage wanted to design, spend karma and learn "create bolt action rifle barrel" and "create bolt action rifle bolt" and "create bolt action rifle stock" and "create bolt action rifle sights" and "create bolt action rifle trigger" and "create bolt action rifle trigger guard" and "create bold action rifle hammer" and "create 1/16inch phillips head screw" and "create 1/32inch flat head screw" and "create 1/8inch diameter 1inch long steel spring" and ......... then he could cast all of those, eat the drain on all of it, and make himself a bolt action rifle out of all the base parts, using the B/R skill and avoiding having to purchase the parts, fine.

Because you aren't creating a multi-layred cake or lasagna. You're creating bland soy-blah that looks like a multi-layered lasagna or cake.

So you could a bland steel revolver that looks like a complex machine made out of composites?

I believe that the point Tarantula is trying to make is that the 'food' created by 'Create food' is basically an homogenous mass that may, just, appear to be something else if the caster gets enough successes. IE, you might be able to make it look like chicken...and taste like chicken [that's the easy part], and maybe even seem to have different textures and layers, but it's still essentially a homogenous mound of goop pretending to be chicken.

His contention is that the 'gun' you'd get from a 'Create gun' spell could possibly be a lump of gun-shaped metal without all of the intricate moving parts.

I'm not altogether convinced by that.
We've already established that you don't need to understand the molecular/atomic make up of an object to create it magically. There may be some argument for saying that the magician ought to have some idea of how a gun fits together to make this kind of spell work...and certainly, there's a hell of a justification for it if you're designing the spell.

On the other hand, perfect translation is a canonical detection spell effect. As a linguist, I'm perfectly aware of just how difficult that actually is - because, even if you resort to the handwavium argument of telepathic-style effects, the magic still has to "know" how language works to effect the translation.

[end of pet peeve]

Point: the translation effect requires the spell to be capable of doing something that no current computer system is actually capable of doing. The 'Create gun' effect is just asking a spell to do something that is within the grasp of a moderately-skilled craftsman (that's not to say a moderately skilled craftsman will produce a good gun...).

Create food creates one thing, an item of food, that is made of a uniform substance, that may look different in different parts but is still the same substance.

Create gun could possibly create a solid steel gun shaped object, made entirely out of steel, provided it could all in once piece, with nothing that wasn't attached. (A hammer wouldn't work, as that would need to be a seperate movable piece on the gun).

Create bullet has the same problem, you could make a bullet, meaning the small amount of lead that is in a shell, then put that in a shell with propellant. Or make 3 spells, create shell, propellant and bullet, then make the materials and save on material cost for crafting your own bullets.

Create sword would work however, as a solid metal 1 piece sword is still functional. Knife, whip, most any melee weapon.

The problem with that AE, is those moving bits. You would then need a create revolver, create revolver chamber thingy, create trigger mechanism, and create hammer and them b/r them together. Which would be fairly hard with a solid steel revolver that is all one piece.

Creating it all together, your trigger is attached to your hammer which is attached to the frame someplace, and none of it moves.

Well, chemically, food isn't a uniform substance.

Conceptually, 'Food' can be a single entity, however.

Chemicall and mechanically, a bullet is not a uniform anything.

Conceptually, 'Bullet' or 'Cartridge', is a single entity.

MiTS has already made clear that, in-game, the conceptual side of things is at least as important as the physical one. This is especially clear in dealing with thermodynamically problematic spells like 'Create Food'.

I can't recall anywhere in MiTS or anywhere else in canon, for that matter, a statement that a creation spell can only create an homogenous mass.

Fashion allows the caster to modify complex substances. So do spells like shapeshift.
These both establish a precedent for the 'Create bullet/gun' spell that seems rational, if unfortunate and potentially unbalancing.

Modifying, and creating are two functinally different processes. I'm using the create water/food as an example for why creation spells do create homogenous masses. Water is homogenous. Food could be, and it would make it simpler to create also.

Now, if you wanted "Change to gun" to change a lump of metal in a gun, I could buy that, as it fits with how transmuting spells are portrayed. But create gun doesn't fit with how creation spells are portrayed.

If your GM thinks that the "Create Matter" type Manipulation spells can only create one solid piece of mass (and like Demosthenes said, this stance is not exactly supported by MitS), then create two spells: Create Steel and Shape Steel (Revolver).

If the mage create som magical ammo, lends it to the sammy who quickly loads it up and shoot their targets with it, before the mage then stops sustaining the spell (before it becomes permanent) and you've just killed people without leaving clues (cept for the wounds of course), it's even better than caseless ammo. There is of course the case of the astral signature, but would that linger around where the spell was cast or where the bullets last existed? Besides, you could possibly kill someone with a very low-force ammo-creation spell since the lethality of the spell is in the skill/weapon of the sammy and not the force, so signatures wouldn't stay around very long, and should be easy to clean up.

Making all these Create thingy spells sustained instead of permanent might make them a bit more balanced, it would certainly get rid of the "why don't the mages start a production line" argument. Besides you'd want the gun for that one scene, and hardly any gm would accept spells that created anything valuable or hard to get permanently.

Create: (item)
TN: OR
Threshold: Avail.
Drain: +1S

Force must <= avail. One item created successes divided by avail. Max items force divided by avail. A new spell must be written & learned for every item.

Good? Tough enough to satisfy the gm afeared of APDS and Hondas? A good mage could spit out a couple of basic ammo rounds before passing out. I think APDS is out of the question for non IEs. If one assumes Food™ has an object rating of around 4 and an availability of around 1, its relatively consistent w/Create Food. Comments? Flames?

Edited for clarity. Oh, and with GM permission extra success can make the item shinier!

Minor point from earlier in the discussion:

Now that I'm back home, I'm looking through my MiTS, and can't find create food, can I get a reference?

Page 147.

Created food is plain but filling. I.E. not triple layer cake, lasagna or anything else, just basic nutrients and such, like soylent green. With GM permission the quality can get better, i.e. taste better, not that it looks like a cupcake, or a pie.

True, but when added together with water being uniform, having the plain food be uniform isn't too out there. Especially when its GM permission only that lets the food be better.

I got it! They're the equivalent of processed Rice Cakes! It creates polymers of complex carbohydrates (starch) into a cuboidal shape. Salt and butter to taste.

I don't have any thoughts on whether the spells discussed should exist or not, or quite how they'd work, but it would certainly create some interesting in-game effects.

Suddenly security becomes completely ineffectual - there's no need to bother searching for guns at the entrance of a place if any mage can just create one on the other side, ditto with bullets. How would this be countered?

The spell as I was discussing was just create bullets. If someone tried to go about with create gun (or anything more complicated) then they're going to be facing TNs of 10-12 (for object resistance) at the very least, and while I might be okay with bullets, there would be long talk with the player over making spells that could replicate a gun.

Also, essentialy, if a mage is going someplace where it's very difficult to smuggle in a gun, and wants to kill someone, there are probably going to be several quicker, and less obvious ways to pull the assassination off.

I keep seeing ORs of 12 bandied about. Can someone give me a canon example of something with an OR over 10? Most guns are classified as having an OR of 8, and highly-processed, high-tech stuff like Monofiliment Whips would be 10. I can't recall a single canon example of anything with an OR over 10.

The book says complex toxic wastes, computers, etc have an OR of 10+
The '+' is where you can get the OR's over 10. Personally, I'd put some of the highly processed stuff at 12 or up, but I don't really know about canon examples of something at that level, only the canon implication that they can GET to that level. I'd put the gun OR at six, more than simple plastics and other such items, less than electronic equipment, depending on what you want to make the gun out of.

In SOTA:64, there's a table on the Adept power of Attunement that shows some more ORs:
Handcrafted quality blade 5
Production-line gun, modern katana 7
Lockpick kit, dirt bike 8
Car, dikoted katana, racing bike 9
Monofilament whip, thunderbird 10

Yeah, that's a helpful chart. My point is though, that there is not one thing in canon that is specifically listed as having an OR over 10.