So I was looking through the spells, and when I saw the Create Food spell in MitS, it got me thinking. If you can create food out of nothing with a spell, you can create other stuff too. How about create RDX, or create Dikote, or create plutonium? Those are all single chemicals, much simpler than a full meal, which consists of many different chemicals unevenly mixed together. They may have more chemical energy, but that just means a higher drain code, and maybe multiple successes required. So as far as I can tell, there is nothing stopping me from creating a starting character from taking create plutonium, create uranium, create red mercury, create TNT, etc, and the nuclear weapons b/r skill, and a nuclear weapons shop, and using it to create my very own neutron bombs. Can someone please tell me if I'm missing something?

Yes, a death wish.

As usual, someone is trying to consider magic entirely backwards. If you'll notice, the OR to affect objects with most spells has absolutely drek-all to do with chemical complexity. It is entirely dependant or conceptual complexity, which is based on how much an object is varied from a natural occurance or instinctual concept. Food and water are instinctual concepts for humans, because they are obvious, and the consequences of going without them are obvious.

If you want to make a less instinctual create spell, look at the lowest OR that could be used to describe food and compare that with the TN on the create food spell. Apply the same ratio between OR and TN for any other materials you wish to create.

You are missing the point. I accept that creating a brick of plutonium is harder than creating food. My point is that it is possible. And the OR of a homogenous block of material can't be too high, although since plutonium is a synthetic element, yo could rule that it would have a high OR. But once again, it's possible. Plus, it's not like there is any rush on creating a freaking atom bomb, so you could cast the spell over and over again if you wanted. Hence, the target number and drain are almost irrelevant.

It seems this could also be used to create valuable materials, earning easy money. Free spirits with the wealth power do essentially that. This would, however, negate the point of shadowrunning, if you could basically print money.

As far as I can tell, only arbitrary gamemaster fiat can stop me from eventually making an atom bomb with the help of magic. A GM could rule that a character can't start the game with such spells, and would have to design them himself. A GM could also rule that the nuclear weapons BR skill is not readilly learnable, although this seems doubtful, as pretty muc anything can be found on Shadowland.

For a second, I thought this was an idea for a "Create Spell" spell.

That would be awesome.

Give 'em a TN equal to half the atomic number of the "highest" element in the product, with extremely popular and well-researched (read: Create Food) spells having lower-than-normal TNs. Carbon would have a TN of 3, Uranium would have a TN of 119. Drain would be force(deadly plus five), so you'd likely just end up dead regardless.

That would certainly make it hard, although a really determined maged would eventually succeed. Looking at the periodic table, the heaviest essential element in food is Iodine, atomic number 53.

First off, magic oesn't create something out of nothing. Different variants of the spell might handle it different ways, but essentially the material is being made out of energy. In this case, magical energy.

Create Food is more or less a manipulation version of a sustenance spell. There's no evidence that the "food" is anything we'd normally recognize as such (i.e. the internal
structure need not correspond to the external appearence or function). If the spell created a piece of fruit, you couldn't take the seeds from it and get the genetic information out of them, because it's not actually a piece of fruit. It's a construct containing nutritious materials in an edible package...possibly nothing more than a "charge" of sustaining energy.

While theoretically possible to design spells to create different substances, the possibility that those substances are valid for all purposes is slim. More advanced materials, especially magical, synthetic or radioactive, would be more difficult to design and create.

I'm not saying that it's /not/ possible to design a Create Iron spell, or anything like that. But I don't think SR spell design has reached the necessary level of advancement.

So if I read you correctly, what you're saying is I would instead make a "create fissile material" or "create fusible material" spell which would create a material that can substitute for any fissile/fusible element in nuclear reactions, but not share the chemical properties of that element? That actually sounds better.

Possibly. It would depend on whether or not the inherent property of the material was more or less complex than the material itself. It also depends on whether anything was actually "created."

In the case of a Create Water spell, did the spell convert magical energy to water, or use magical energy to gather water molecules together? Is it actually water, or is it something that looks and acts like water, but is actually just magical energy in a temporary liquid form that acts like water?

The question becomes, is it easier to create a single element (Create Water) or is it easier to create something that /acts/ like that element?

Good point. Gathering up elements instead of creating them would make a big difference, and make it impossible to make plutonium and other synthetic elements. Of course, that still leaves open the possibility of using magic to make exotic explosives like RDX.

Anyway, it's just a thought experiment. I've done some pretty crazy things, but I have to draw the line here even if Grendel (my current GM) doesn't smack me upside the head for suggesting something so crazy. I using a cropdusting drone to spray a merc camp with cyanide gas, or using RDX to level a small skyscraper, is about as high as I can go on the destruction scale.

The issue here I think is that there's really nothing stopping you from "create gold" which is natural. This is why I've removed "create" spells entirely from my games, saying that magic cannot permanently create anything. You can do a sustained spell like that, or you can have an instant spell that temporarily creates something (like toxic wave) but after a while this fades.

JaronK

That's my take. I actually thought create food was just a non-canon spell someone had posted on the internet until I ran across it today. Although create RDX would be nice.

Because Shadowrun magic is extremely limited in function. That's my broad, cop-out answer.

Fair enough, but, theoretically speaking...

Why would the heal spell be permanent and create "X" not?

The create spell spell idea has gotten me thinking though. Maybe you could use divination to help design spells? Or a metamagic variant with divination as a prerequisite?

create food is lame and out of flavor. I hate that spell. It's like, why didn't they just include "Magic circle against evil"

Good and evil are vague concepts anyway. How about magic circle against annoying, or magic circle against assholes? Maybe a magic circle against dumbasses or jinxes, to protect you from the total ****up on your team.

And what human, ANY human, would be able to walk through a "Protection from Evil" spell?

I think a lot of the confusion comes from the meaning of a "permanent" spell. Spells like heal and treat are "permanent" because their effects are permanent. When the heal spell is made permanent and the sucking wound where your chummers chest once was is rendered whole again, it's impossible to distinguish the magically healed flesh from the character's own body. You could not cut the chunk of meat back out and know that it is magically regrown flesh, whereas the flesh next to it is not.

Create food and water are permanent for comparable reasons: once the food/water has been incorporated into the body, there comes a point where you cannot distinguish between magically generated food and "real" food.

If I ever get a Th.D I'll be able to tell you why this is. For now, I just trust that the game designers wanted to provide a way of feeding runners trapped in the Arc' and did not intend to have them producing APDS ammo by dancing once or twice around a magical circle.

Conversely, you could house rule it such that materials which have an availability of "always" can be magically generated (the cosmos is full of such patterns). For items with availability codes, the force of the create X spell required to make X is the availability code, the casting time is the availability time, and the number of successes on the sorcery test reduce the availability time in the same way that ettiquette successes do.

Even ranger Joes relatively harsh take on what you can make is going to lead to problems, not least being that some things that are easy to get are not easy to transport or of low value, for example a 100 dollar note would have an availability of always, if somebody asks for one at any bank and have the funds they will be handed it immediately, (gold, in the form of rings and such, much the same) only the effort of getting it applies, no waiting time. It is also a relatively simple and low energy object (especially when compared to nutritious food).

Any create spell should be only for homogenous chemical mixtures without precisely formed shape and should only be available with the GMs /properly considered/ approval, if the spell is later deemed to be a problem this is the fault of the player for not allowing the GM to properly consider all possible uses of the spell.

Edward

First of all it is magic, it shouldn't be classified as a science no matter what. No matter what you may think this game is about fun. If my players want to risk serious drain to create ten rounds of AV ammon, so be it. My limitation on the spell is that you need to make a B/R roll for anything more complicated than a club.

So, would an alternate spell to "create food" be something like a "nutrition" spell? It would solve the creation problem perform the same function.

The sad part is, they inveneted that spell first.

I have to agree with lorthazar. If my players want to create uranium and can make some reasonable explanations, have appropriate skill, give well thought out answers, etc... I would give them a shot, a long one, but a shot none the less. Isn't that the nature of the game?

What about something more mundane than plutonium... This thread gave me the idea for "create fuel" which would stop you from running out of gas/methane/etc on those long runs through the desert. but then line of sight problems creep up, as most vehicles don't have external transparent fuel tanks for obvious reasons.

The other option i thought of, would be a spell that had the same EFFECT as "create fuel" but without the messy middle man of actually manifesting 50 gallons of diesel. Something like "energise vehicle"

thoughts?

But then again, that hardly matters. They have no need for crime, so who cares if it's got his signature? The guy can just sit there and turn out rare woods all day long for sale and retire.

JaronK

You think astral sigs would only be used by law enforcement? You have any idea how hard the lumber companies would smack into anyone getting in on their market? Drek, I'd be shocked if the bigger lumber companies didn't already use that method to increase revenue beyond what a few tree farms can generate. You know they'd be ticked at anyone else using that trade secret, especially if the mage is dumb enough to sell below the corporate pricing for the rare woods in question.

anyone else just get the image of an initiation group of Beaver Shaman in suits sitting around the lodge discussing some upstart and how to deal with him?

actually yes

Yeah, but the buck-tooth fetishes would really slow down the conversation.

Given that, using the canon rules for Alchemy and Enchanting, any runner could become rich beyond the dreams of the greediest great dragon in a couple of years, you don't really need spells to sell stuff. Just make Oricalcum and watch in horror as your GM houserules away the idiocy of those rules and doesn't let you produce a million nuyen a month.

Yeah, that's something I thought about too. I would just house rule that you can't take the enchanting skill at character generation, and would have to find the formula for orichalcum somewhere.

I could swear MitS mentioned a corp experiment where they quickened a lightning spell for power. I think the background count rapidly rose until the spell failed.

That player is clearly more interested in a game of "Magick Tycoon" than in shadowrunnuing, and should be treated as such.

Yes, the enchanting rules always seemed to me like they basically took a player out of the game for a month, plus required an inhuman amount of dedication. Seems anyone who does it won't really be shadowrunning.