I understand that levitate allows the caster to move an object at a set speed limited by force every turn.

How does it do this? It can't be applying a vector force otherwise the target object would accelerate.

What happens when the object is moved through a medium other than ground-ish level air, say underwater or from the top of Everest?

It's magic.

Then you could probably up or down the meters per turn that the spell allows someone to move. Or leave it the same, and say "Hey, it's magic!"

Maaaaaagic. [EDIT: Doh, slow on the draw]

I don't remember the exact spell wording, but as a GM i would likely rule that Levitate works fine in water.

P.S. Commercial airplanes regularly fly higher than Mount Everest, so you are still dealing with air. Just not as much.

Err, Bigity, why'd you bother putting a reply up.

Because I was answering your questions?

I just answered them in a sarcastic manner, which is my way.

My fault for skipping the "don't bother answering if the answer is flippant" blurb.

I just like getting a bit of online-concensus on house-ruling, it smoothes the waters round the table when somebody disagrees.

Because it was a reasonble response from his perspective?

I would argue that wherever you are in the manasphere, the spell functions normally as described. Except of course if you can't move through the matter in your way (i.e. through the mountain is a no, over it is a yes). The acceleration at the beginning of the first phase of movement may be astronomical, but the spell affects you based on your interconnectedness to the mana and, well, its magical. And the speeds listed are not that fast that it is unreasonable for a metahuman to survive the initial bump of takeoff.

People walk away from high speed crashes if they are sufficiently restrained, so I could see the magic cushioning your aura and you as it moves you. Might yo ube shaken up? Sure, but you won't be messed up necessarily.

I don't think we want vehicle acceleration rules brought into this, do we?

I'd just either leave it alone, or cut the movement in half for thick environments (water, sewer sludge), and leave it the same for any type of atmosphere someone could breath in.

Or..I wouldn't let it work at all in anything like water or beer or anything besides air/gases.

Basically (from physics 101) the viscosity of the fluid you are traveling through has a large impact on maximum speed. Drag from air at a vehilce's cruising rate may be based on Velocity^4 or more for a car. Since you are moving through a much higher viscosity medium I could see the affect of the spell mitigated by the ratio of the viscosity of the medium to that of air as a scalar reduction.

Obviously someone with more hydro and flow theory than I could write this up more coherently than I just did, but I think my point stands.

But probably meaningfully less if the acceleration is (magically!) applied to every particle in your body, as opposed to letting all sorts of bits get thrown against each other.

Actually, would you even take damage in that case? Can someone more versed than I am in impacts chime in? Seems to me you'd eliminate bruising, excessive changes in blood pressure, bone breakage, and pretty much all other negative effects of it, but I could be dramatically wrong (especially since I haven't had caffeine yet today).

~J

That isnot it at all. If all your bits are moved at the same time in the same directin at the same rate, then you aren't going to notice the accelleration as such...

No impact, no cry.

But the mass of the subject is accounted for in the TN of the spell. I would rule that the mass includes carried gear and therefore the gear is affected by the maaaagic, wooOOoo!

It's magic.

It's also Levitate - not Buoyancy.

Now these answers might seem flippant, but Since there are distinct elements in magic, maybe Levitate only works in the air.

That sort of thing only applies if the logic proposed in the creation rules was held to in the creation of the published spells.

If the spell eleminates or reverses gravity it might be MORE effective in fluids because of boyant forces, which are usually counter to the force of gravity, which would make them additive if gravity were reversed.

But i kind of like the idea of instantaneous acceleration of every atom in your body. Along the same lines some of the barrier spells could work in similar fasion (slowing incoming object instantaniously on and atomic level as they come into contact with the magical "field" of the spell). (edit: i guess in effect this means the spell "acts on mass")

You could also say that the spell creates some kind of magical linkage between the physical form and the astral, which can already fly and thus moves the meat....

The idea of instantanous acceleration opens up a whole new can of worms.

Acceleration is the derivitive of velocity. Dv/Dt = A

The limit as Dt ->0 of Dv/Dt = infinity.

Instantaneous acceleration = infinite acceleration. This violates special reletivity in so many ways it is funny.

The upshot is that a magician with a very high magic rating casting a very high force version of the spell could very well break the lightspeed barrier.

There, FTL in Shadowrun. All you need an a magician who is both absurdly powerful and aspected toward the cold emptyness of space to cast and sustain the spell and you'll be exploring strange new world in no time.

Every object must accelerate quantities at least equal to one planck length in exactly one planck time to change velocity, so any acceleration is as close to instantaneous acceleration as can have any meaning.

~J

And suddenly I see Scottie's red engineering uniform not red because of rank, but due to the blood magic rituals he must perform to maintain the speed.

"I cannae give her any more, captain, the deck's already flooded and the holding cells are as barren as a Christmas tree on the fourth of July!"

~J

Hmmm...

I guess I mean instantaneous in that all the atoms of the object experience the force of acceleration at the exact same time. Maybe symultaneous would be a better word.

Simple answer: it's telekinesis, not physics. I.E. you move as if I giant hand has grabbed you and all your gear and is moving you at speed X. Hence, no accelleration, no worries about medium viscosity, et cetera.

I percieve levitation to be a fluid field surrounding the target. The caster remains in acute control of movement and can specify pressure points to simulate "stable" ground whereever he needs.

Secondly, target is defined, by me, as all objects physically connected and paid for by raising the TN for each 100kgs. So a person lifted would include all their gear.

Two persons lifted would work, as long as the TN was their total weight, and they keep touching one another.

Viscousity of water would have no effect, as levitate is not measured in physical pull, but rather the willpower of the mage to shift the target in relation to the manasphere.

The short version: "Its Magic."

However, this does not remove the option of combining Levitate with alternate means of propulsion. Fx if I got kicked from an airplane going at full speed, and I had my levitate spell on, then I'd not argue that I could make an immediate vector stop, I'd think I'd continue in the path of the plane, losing speed from air viscousity, aswell as reducing my speed by my levitation speed pr. round.

Naturally, I wouldn't start dropping to the ground unless I was willing, as I have no vector pulling me that way, except gravity which IS handled by the Levitate spell.

Nice little mishmash of gravity, antigravity mass and speed there, but in my warped mind it makes the most sense.

There are some pretty sick applications of this spell imaginable.

A bunch of dikoted (or not) clear ceramic/glass needles held stationary between you and someone closing in to melee, or launched from the palm of your hand at (Magic x Successes meters / combat round).

A pair of ball bearings with monofilament wire strung between them zipping through a crowd, or a whole net for that matter.

Levitating a man hole cover, or a bunch of ball bearings in front of a persuing vehicle.

The list goes on and on.

What I find to be the most relevant question is not whether you can create instant unlimited acceleration, thus making a magical FTL drive, or linear accelerator (read gauss cannon). It is: how do these 'magical forces' interact with 'real life,' so to speak?

For instance, by mixing the 'forces' found in the levitate and physical barrier spells it doesn't seem like it would be hard to make a spell that takes the shape of a wedge, that is: invisible to mundanes, has an 'edge' can have a height that is so close to zero as to be even 'sharper' than monofilament, can move or be made stationary, is unaffected by gravity or inertia (the inertia part is the coolest), is frictionless for all intents and purposes, and the mass that it can affect is not dependant on the force of the spell.

Imagine the applications of that spell. You could flip cars over, or worse, use their own inertia to cut themselves in half on the infinitely sharp end of the wedge. You could derail trains or maglevs, or cut through objects like a splitting wedge through wood.

Pretty game breaking stuff, especailly in the hands of creative problem solvers (read player characters).

The barrier spell can make domes or walls, not wedges, and not wedges that are monofilament sharp. Nor are they mobile, if they were, then you could tip them over using mundane force as well.

Levitate is just a force that moves the object its cast upon at a certain speed.

So, your needles hanging in space would only damage the person charging you, if his inertia was high enough. Secondly, its directly ruled in the spell, that it deals (Movement/10)M Stun, unless the GM rules it deals Physical (still M). Dikoting anything won't work with this spell.

The whole "instant acceleration" dilemma is not as interesting, if you remember that, as a rule, no spell deals more than its Force in Power of an attack.

Going wild in physics details are kinda moot, its a game, the game must not become unbalanced, hence "its magic" becomes a perfectly acceptable explanation.

My point exactly.