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weblife
With Shape Earth you can tunnel around pretty much freely. As long as you have plenty of dirt and not too many metals or processed rocks in your path.

How many banks, corp sites etc. would you think have installed tremor sensors?

How would you use Shape Earth if it was used to trap someone?

With a range of LOS and ability to use any earth visible within that distance, wouldn't it be possible to scrape off dust and dirt from almost any outdoor surface? - Atleast a few clods of dirt within a reasonable range. (you can only move it successes meters (up to force) pr. round)

What about lifestyle impact? - Living High in your own underground palace. Assuming your character knows how to make caves that are structurally sound. (Civil Engineering/Structural Engineering or Architecture)

What do you guys think?

Do you ever use the spell?
Herald of Verjigorm
QUOTE (weblife)
How many banks, corp sites etc. would you think have installed tremor sensors?
I think that some have this already. The number would only rise in Shadowrun.
QUOTE
How would you use Shape Earth if it was used to trap someone?
Classic pit trap?
QUOTE
With a range of LOS and ability to use any earth visible within that distance, wouldn't it be possible to scrape off dust and dirt from almost any outdoor surface? - Atleast a few clods of dirt within a reasonable range. (you can only move it successes meters (up to force) pr. round)
Maybe, are you trying to create a smokescreen or just clean the room easier? I don't see a problem with either, but I don't quite see the intent of your question.
QUOTE
What about lifestyle impact? - Living High in your own underground palace. Assuming your character knows how to make caves that are structurally sound. (Civil Engineering/Structural Engineering or Architecture)
Living underground has its own difficulties to maintain any level of lifestyle. I'd leave the costs mostly unchanged.
QUOTE
Do you ever use the spell?
If it fits the mage. Can't remember if I even did get a mage with this spell in a game that lasted.
Edward
Banks are defended by the fact that all sides of the vault are armoured, you could probably use this spell to dig up to the vault wall (I doubt it would trigger a vibration detector and even if it did a silence spell would prevent it).

In the time it takes to burn threw the back wall of the vault even the most inept astral patrol will have noticed you, the first strike will probably be 2 spirits for every member of your teem (4 for the magicals) materialising and whooping your collective asses before the security teem moves in to mop up.

As to lifestyle, the additional costs of caballing your cave will mean you pay the normal fee for the liveable space but you could have a practically limitless space with no wired lighting or the like to use for storage.

The problem is the force of the spell, the force must be equal to the brayer rating of the material listed as 4 for gravel or loose rock and 6+ for stone. Without additional structural supports you need stone so a starting character can only shape the softest of suitable materials which is fine if you can find a suitable location. This can be somewhat alleviated by summoning a high force elemental or other stone spirit with the move earth spell as a power to do the job for you, but summoning something big enough is a tall order.

Edward
toturi
While tremor sensors might be able to detect soil movement, such sensors tend to detect large scale movements ie earthquakes. More sensitive equipment tend to give more false returns, try installing tremors sensors near a busy intersection or a near a highway, you'll get a whole truckload of false returns.
Edward
A network of tremor sensors will detect the location of each return. By eliminating all returns with an epicentre within a meatier of ground level or within the basements of surrounding buildings you achieve a usable system to detect tunnelling activity.

Tunnelling would be characterised by a series of contacts slowly moving along a line. It would take a reasonably sophisticated program to work it out and with knowledge of eth program you could probably fool it but I think it could be built today.

Edward
weblife
In our campaign we have opted that, with the spell in existance, any vaults of serious security levels, have some level of detection equipment.

But as for getting spotted by astral security.. They can't find you in the soil. You can't move very quickly through the Earth in astral form.

As for cutting.. Well, if you are below or parallel to the vault, you don't waste time cutting, you have explosives and massive amounts of backing material available. Blasting your way in, using the structures own weight to collapse it is so much more fun.

I also use the spell for getaway purposes. Once annoying Lonestar has an astral mage hovering around you, you rush to the park and dig in. He either has to get close, inside your moving earthbubble, or get lost.

As my Shamanist is heavy into melee, forcing astral pursuers in close, where I can hit them with my weapon focus, or forcing them to give up pursuit is important. The spell adds a new level to travel. - Combined with levitate predug tunnels serve as a rapid transit system underground. You can tunnel at a speed of around 7 km/t with a Forece 6.

I'm sort of looking for stuff the GM can use to rebalance the spell and situations, because my Wyrm Shamanist is able to do stuff that we had not tried before.

Fx. moving into a compound with 6m3 of dirt pushing in front of you has a tendency to provide pretty good cover. Not to mention block doorways or corridors you do not wish to enter yet.
fistandantilus4.0
For tunneling, I require the player mage to have some skill having to do with tunneling, architecture, anything that would give him some knowledge of how to dig a 4' around tunnel 10'+ long without out it collapsing.

Also, another limitation is the force of the spell as mentioned earlier. If they want to move through anything more than regular soil , they need a force 6+. Target number to learn a spell is forcex2. It could take quite a while to learn that at Force 8, where it gets REALLY useful.
Sandoval Smith
Also, consider that in a heavily urbanized region circa 2064, how much actual loose dirt are you going to be encountering when trying to get into a bank. Vibration detectors are also not a bad idea. They just have to be set with a high enough threshold that background vibrations don't set them off, but some one chiseling a hole in concreteIt can't shift processed materials, which will add the further difficulty of getting through as the mage will have to worm through the various bits of below ground city infrastructure. It also doesn't reinforce the material moved. A man sized tunnel through loose soil is going to collapse if not reinforced.
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