The concept of this spell is simple: When cast, the caster negates nearly all of his inertia. Although gravity pulls on him as normal, the caster can survive jumping out of an airplane at 3,000 feet, and drastically reduce the wounds produced from being hit by a large object, such as a car. However, most guns and edged weapons would do damage as normal. (Shooting a bullet through a piece of paper will not cause the paper to fold around the bullet and be carried with it to the target; it will simply leave a nice, neat hole in the target). Admittedly, the whole physics aspect of the thing makes no sense, but it would be cool regardless.
That said, it is pretty powerful. I think I'm going to leave it safely in the hands of my NPCs; if the PCs ever try to cast it, I'm going to have the drain fry 'em within an inch of their life.
Full Version: Negate Intertia
I dub thee, bumper-mage.
So, what, it's an armor spell that only applies if one of the relevant objects is larger than the mage, but it cancels any damage in that case? How does it depend on the force of casting? Why wouldn't it make any armor count as hardened? Will it stack with the classic armor spell?
So, what, it's an armor spell that only applies if one of the relevant objects is larger than the mage, but it cancels any damage in that case? How does it depend on the force of casting? Why wouldn't it make any armor count as hardened? Will it stack with the classic armor spell?
| QUOTE |
| I think I'm going to leave it safely in the hands of my NPCs; if the PCs ever try to cast it, I'm going to have the drain fry 'em within an inch of their life. |
That's just not right. if you're going to design a spell, then make sure that it's balanced, meaing that if an NPC can have it, there's really no reason that a PC can't have it. Anything else, and you're just not being fair to the players.
Having said that, there's really no reason that you should explain exactly why Mr NPC can fall 3,000' without a scratch. THere's no reason they should be able to figure out that he has some unique spell. But if they do, how much sense does it make that the spell should work differently drain wise for them. That's just meta-gaming.
Plus think of the other implications of that spell. What would happen to a guy flying on a plane at ssay 350mph. He gets up to hang a leak and someone cancles his inertia. All of a sudden he's going 0mph and the back of the plane hits him.
Someone really tricky would ancher it on a target to activate when he was in just such a situation and deactivate milliseconds before his impact with the back of the plane.
Situation:
Joe Mage, the notorius assassain, gets all corped up in his tres chic suit, strolls into the VIP lounge of Sea-Tac international and spots his target, Mr. Soon-to-be-dead Corp-exec-guy. Joe sits relatively close to his target and casually opens up his pocet secretary to read the holo of todays Wall Street Journal, or some such. Joe, being a mage who conjures, has a decent charisma and after a little while strikes up a conversation with his target. As they get up to board the plane, Joe hands his mark a spiffy business card. Of course, the mark (being mundane) does not know that this card is actually a specially designed anchoring focus that will basically splat him when he gets up to pee, which Joe has seen to by ordering a copius ammount of drinks before they got on the plane.
Granted, this is a pretty simplistic example, but come on. Using magic to mess with forces like gravity or inertia, or friction, in such a way, is just begging someone with a better understanding of physics to bend you over and nail you in the brown eye.
Someone really tricky would ancher it on a target to activate when he was in just such a situation and deactivate milliseconds before his impact with the back of the plane.
Situation:
Joe Mage, the notorius assassain, gets all corped up in his tres chic suit, strolls into the VIP lounge of Sea-Tac international and spots his target, Mr. Soon-to-be-dead Corp-exec-guy. Joe sits relatively close to his target and casually opens up his pocet secretary to read the holo of todays Wall Street Journal, or some such. Joe, being a mage who conjures, has a decent charisma and after a little while strikes up a conversation with his target. As they get up to board the plane, Joe hands his mark a spiffy business card. Of course, the mark (being mundane) does not know that this card is actually a specially designed anchoring focus that will basically splat him when he gets up to pee, which Joe has seen to by ordering a copius ammount of drinks before they got on the plane.
Granted, this is a pretty simplistic example, but come on. Using magic to mess with forces like gravity or inertia, or friction, in such a way, is just begging someone with a better understanding of physics to bend you over and nail you in the brown eye.
For some reason I had the sudden worry that he was planning to go supralight with this... anyone remember E.E. "Doc" Smith's FTL travel solution in the Lensman books? 
The problem with negating inertia is wind.
If you sustain this spell on yourself then someone sneezing in your direction could hurl you from Seatle to Hong Kong.
Inertia is what keeps things from flying off at infinite velocoity with the slightest tap.
Of course, air resistance will also provide an effect. So you would , literally, be gone with the wind. I suggest naming any character that take this spell, "Tara"
If you sustain this spell on yourself then someone sneezing in your direction could hurl you from Seatle to Hong Kong.
Inertia is what keeps things from flying off at infinite velocoity with the slightest tap.
Of course, air resistance will also provide an effect. So you would , literally, be gone with the wind. I suggest naming any character that take this spell, "Tara"
| QUOTE (Zesha White) |
| Joe Mage, the notorius assassain, gets all corped up in his tres chic suit, strolls into the VIP lounge of Sea-Tac international and spots his target, Mr. Soon-to-be-dead Corp-exec-guy. Joe sits relatively close to his target and casually opens up his pocet secretary to read the holo of todays Wall Street Journal, or some such. Joe, being a mage who conjures, has a decent charisma and after a little while strikes up a conversation with his target. As they get up to board the plane, Joe hands his mark a spiffy business card. Of course, the mark (being mundane) does not know that this card is actually a specially designed anchoring focus that will basically splat him when he gets up to pee, which Joe has seen to by ordering a copius ammount of drinks before they got on the plane. Granted, this is a pretty simplistic example, but come on. Using magic to mess with forces like gravity or inertia, or friction, in such a way, is just begging someone with a better understanding of physics to bend you over and nail you in the brown eye. |
Or! You forget about coming up with convoluted ways to kill someone with spells that aren't designed for it, and just walk up to him on the street and manabolt his fragging head off.
Killing people with magic is really easy. There's an entire category of spells specifically designed for killing people. Every caster PC I've ever played has had at least one spell that could be used for killing people, and I long ago lost track of the number of people that they've actually killed with them. "OMG you could kill someone with that!" is not a valid objection to a spell.
Actually, Zesha White's example wouldn't work at all. The character would still remain unmoving realitive to the plane so long as he is inside the plane. Everything in the plane is moving with the plane so there is nothing that would cause him to accelerate realitive to the plane.
It would, however, make the Aircraft slightly more fuel efficient. Such a spell could be use on cargo to drasticly reduce fuel requirements for transit.
I have no clue how such a spell would effect the nanosecond scale time dilation experience by airline passangers. Supposedly, magic can't alter the flow of time.
It would, however, make the Aircraft slightly more fuel efficient. Such a spell could be use on cargo to drasticly reduce fuel requirements for transit.
I have no clue how such a spell would effect the nanosecond scale time dilation experience by airline passangers. Supposedly, magic can't alter the flow of time.
It seems to me that the goal of this spell is to negate the casters momentum with respect to their perceived rest frame* (if they're on the ground w/rt the ground, if they're on a plane w/rt the plane etc. etc.). This description makes much more sense to me than "negating inertia," which is at least somewhat equivalent to saying "I negate my mass."
If its duration is instantaneous I forsee no problem and think its actually a nifty idea (I would classify it as a telekinetic manipulation, possibly a faster version of levitate or a very precisely designed fling). If its sustained the question of what happens when the mage stops sustaining it rears its ugly head.
Its also worth contemplating how force and sucesses work. I would recommend a cap on the number of kg*m/s absorbed by the spell based on sucesses and limited by force.
*EDIT: To clarify the statement "perceived rest frame", I mean perceived frame they should be resting in, not the frame in which they are instantaneously at rest.
If its duration is instantaneous I forsee no problem and think its actually a nifty idea (I would classify it as a telekinetic manipulation, possibly a faster version of levitate or a very precisely designed fling). If its sustained the question of what happens when the mage stops sustaining it rears its ugly head.
Its also worth contemplating how force and sucesses work. I would recommend a cap on the number of kg*m/s absorbed by the spell based on sucesses and limited by force.
*EDIT: To clarify the statement "perceived rest frame", I mean perceived frame they should be resting in, not the frame in which they are instantaneously at rest.
You know, this thread reminds me of something that my brother told me about while he was playing "that other game" way back in high school.
One of our classmates was playing a high-level magic user.
Scenario:
Said magic user PC is riding about 50 feet off the ground (and moving at about 50 kph) atop a winged creature of some sort, when he espies somethng going on below, and slightly ahead of, his current position.
He decides to TELEPORT to somewhere near the activity (oops
) in order not to alarm the other individuals.
Unfortunately, he forgot about a little law of physics called "conservation of momentum"--not to mention Newton's First Law of Motion--"An object at rest tends to stay at rest; an object in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted upon by an unbalanced force".
His character materialized about 2 feet off the ground, moving at the aforementioned 50 kph or so, and ended up cartwheeling for about 100 feet before encountering something with sufficient mass (I think it was either a stone wall or a very large tree) to halt his forward progress.
"Yaaah-oof-oof-oof-oof-UNGH!"
<CRUNCH>
--Foreigner
One of our classmates was playing a high-level magic user.
Scenario:
Said magic user PC is riding about 50 feet off the ground (and moving at about 50 kph) atop a winged creature of some sort, when he espies somethng going on below, and slightly ahead of, his current position.
He decides to TELEPORT to somewhere near the activity (oops
) in order not to alarm the other individuals.Unfortunately, he forgot about a little law of physics called "conservation of momentum"--not to mention Newton's First Law of Motion--"An object at rest tends to stay at rest; an object in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted upon by an unbalanced force".
His character materialized about 2 feet off the ground, moving at the aforementioned 50 kph or so, and ended up cartwheeling for about 100 feet before encountering something with sufficient mass (I think it was either a stone wall or a very large tree) to halt his forward progress.
"Yaaah-oof-oof-oof-oof-UNGH!"
<CRUNCH>
--Foreigner
The most unbalancing thing about this spell is basically this:
The spells INTENTION is that a caster/target would survive a fall from a greath height (airplane, cliff etc) but the problem I see is that it also gives the target/caster immunity to collision damage, including being hit by a speeding car (and accelerated god knows where due to the gained inertia by said collision).
It COULD be balanced if it ONLY applied that only the mage would be the mooving object (ok, physics aside, from our POW the earth is standing still, to a physicist it's moving bloody fast, it's magic, ok)
The spells INTENTION is that a caster/target would survive a fall from a greath height (airplane, cliff etc) but the problem I see is that it also gives the target/caster immunity to collision damage, including being hit by a speeding car (and accelerated god knows where due to the gained inertia by said collision).
It COULD be balanced if it ONLY applied that only the mage would be the mooving object (ok, physics aside, from our POW the earth is standing still, to a physicist it's moving bloody fast, it's magic, ok)
You know, the inertia-dampened mage falling from 30,000 feet would slimply bounce back up to 30,000 feet after striking the ground.
This has the potential to be a very funny but ultimatly useless spell. Especially as the win carries the magician across continents and oceans.
This has the potential to be a very funny but ultimatly useless spell. Especially as the win carries the magician across continents and oceans.
hyzmarca, I think that you are interpreting the term inertia in its strictest sense which is the inherent resistance of an object to change in motion. Cancelling that kind of inertia would be very bad and result in the bouncing mages and wind surfers you describe.
As stated above I'm fairly sure the intent of the spell is to cancel a mage's momentum (which seems to be confused with inertia in the initial post) with respect to a frame in which the mage thinks he should be at rest. This is a much more reasonable proposition because it involves helping the mage rather than harming him.
Joop, if the spell is an instantaneous effect then being struck by a car is still something to worry about because the initial impact would cause significant damage and it would be difficult to cast the spell before the secondary impact with the ground or a tree took effect. Also, if the cap of the number of kg*m/s based on force and successes is in place the spell can do little to stop a car, which is significantly more massive than a mage. As a result, I don't think the spell would need to be self-limited nor do I believe that it would render anyone immune to collisions.
Anchoring it to detect car would be another story entirely and would make an interesting (if inconvenient while walking on a street) focus.
As stated above I'm fairly sure the intent of the spell is to cancel a mage's momentum (which seems to be confused with inertia in the initial post) with respect to a frame in which the mage thinks he should be at rest. This is a much more reasonable proposition because it involves helping the mage rather than harming him.
Joop, if the spell is an instantaneous effect then being struck by a car is still something to worry about because the initial impact would cause significant damage and it would be difficult to cast the spell before the secondary impact with the ground or a tree took effect. Also, if the cap of the number of kg*m/s based on force and successes is in place the spell can do little to stop a car, which is significantly more massive than a mage. As a result, I don't think the spell would need to be self-limited nor do I believe that it would render anyone immune to collisions.
Anchoring it to detect car would be another story entirely and would make an interesting (if inconvenient while walking on a street) focus.
Ugliest would be Antiinertia spell make things at rest accelerate uncontrollably or objest in motion to stop instantly
You mean like fling? Or levitate?
It's been 14 years since I took a high school physics class so I googled 'inertia' to see if I still remembered what it meant.
The sight I went to was:
http://www.fearofphysics.com/w.php?define=inertia
Inertia is the tendancy of an object in motion to stay in motion or for an object at rest to stay at rest (which is what I remembered).
So, if you negate something's inertia, if it is moving then it will want to stop and if it is resting it will want to move? Seems pretty logical, but I am not a physicist.
The way I interpreted this was that you have a guy on a plane and all of a sudden he stopped. He has no movement what so ever. Why? Because he was in motion but after the spell took affect his mass wanted to stop (negated inertia of a moving object) and since there was plenty of air to provide resistance and friction from his feet on the carpet, he stopped. The plane, on the other hand, was not affected by the spell and kept on going. The spell ended a split second later, inertia is normal for the guy, and all of a sudden he colides with the back of the plane which in effect would be like falling half an inch but at 350 miles per hour. I'm not saying that that is what would really happen, just how I would interpret it happening.
The point, is not "OMG! He just used a negate inertia spell to kill someone."
The point is that you open a whole can of worms when you start using 'magic' to break or alter natural 'real world' laws, because your players are creative people and they will come up with stuff to blow your game apart if you give them half a chance. And you shouldn't fault them for being creative and beating you with the stick you gave them.
It seems to me just a better idea to say that magic follows natural laws but in different ways that are explained by magic theory. Have the magician come up with an effect, in this case stopping a fall instantly, and work out a reasonable drain code, etc.
I know that this is largely arguing somantics, but if you can use magic to negate a person's inertia, then it stands to reason that you can use magic to negate the covalent and/or ionic bonds in a person or object. Hello disintigrate. Or negate the force of gravity acting on someone. Hey, wanna see me slingshot someone into space?
The sight I went to was:
http://www.fearofphysics.com/w.php?define=inertia
Inertia is the tendancy of an object in motion to stay in motion or for an object at rest to stay at rest (which is what I remembered).
So, if you negate something's inertia, if it is moving then it will want to stop and if it is resting it will want to move? Seems pretty logical, but I am not a physicist.
The way I interpreted this was that you have a guy on a plane and all of a sudden he stopped. He has no movement what so ever. Why? Because he was in motion but after the spell took affect his mass wanted to stop (negated inertia of a moving object) and since there was plenty of air to provide resistance and friction from his feet on the carpet, he stopped. The plane, on the other hand, was not affected by the spell and kept on going. The spell ended a split second later, inertia is normal for the guy, and all of a sudden he colides with the back of the plane which in effect would be like falling half an inch but at 350 miles per hour. I'm not saying that that is what would really happen, just how I would interpret it happening.
The point, is not "OMG! He just used a negate inertia spell to kill someone."
The point is that you open a whole can of worms when you start using 'magic' to break or alter natural 'real world' laws, because your players are creative people and they will come up with stuff to blow your game apart if you give them half a chance. And you shouldn't fault them for being creative and beating you with the stick you gave them.
It seems to me just a better idea to say that magic follows natural laws but in different ways that are explained by magic theory. Have the magician come up with an effect, in this case stopping a fall instantly, and work out a reasonable drain code, etc.
I know that this is largely arguing somantics, but if you can use magic to negate a person's inertia, then it stands to reason that you can use magic to negate the covalent and/or ionic bonds in a person or object. Hello disintigrate. Or negate the force of gravity acting on someone. Hey, wanna see me slingshot someone into space?
Sounds to me you need a spell that affects velocity, not inertia. Inertia big can of worms, velocity not. It's also a lot easier to handle; each level halving velocity (round up).
So, for example, you're at terminal velocity (54 metres/second is the figure I can find repeated most often, but it is variable from 53 to 76 apparently) having fallen out of a plane. A level 1 casting drops the speed to 27m/sec, level 2 14, level 3 7, and so on. Bear in mind that the idea of 2m/sec at level 5 may seem like you're going slow, but that is still 7.2km/hour... sure, it's survivable (especially when compared to the original 194.4km/hour), but it's going to need you to hit the ground running.
To give another example, you're being taken in a Lone Star van to be thrown in cells overnight while they attain papers to do further action. Your team is attempting to pursue, but they found out quite late. The team's going 110km/h, the van 140. If you hit the van with a level 2 Reduce Velocity, suddenly the van's reduced to 35km/h, allowing the team to catch up a lot faster.
See? Much simpler idea, doing a similar thing. You'd probably have to make the Drain quite severe as a balance; after all, it can seriously unbalance things. Hell, if you targeted a missile, for example...
So, for example, you're at terminal velocity (54 metres/second is the figure I can find repeated most often, but it is variable from 53 to 76 apparently) having fallen out of a plane. A level 1 casting drops the speed to 27m/sec, level 2 14, level 3 7, and so on. Bear in mind that the idea of 2m/sec at level 5 may seem like you're going slow, but that is still 7.2km/hour... sure, it's survivable (especially when compared to the original 194.4km/hour), but it's going to need you to hit the ground running.
To give another example, you're being taken in a Lone Star van to be thrown in cells overnight while they attain papers to do further action. Your team is attempting to pursue, but they found out quite late. The team's going 110km/h, the van 140. If you hit the van with a level 2 Reduce Velocity, suddenly the van's reduced to 35km/h, allowing the team to catch up a lot faster.
See? Much simpler idea, doing a similar thing. You'd probably have to make the Drain quite severe as a balance; after all, it can seriously unbalance things. Hell, if you targeted a missile, for example...
Geez.. I think somewhere I instigated all this when I began designing that modified levitate spell.
All I was trying to do, was to design a spell that, in effect, copied, or tried to copy, the critter Movement Power.
And it seems it has run full circle, now that sanctusmortis brings up the flipside of the Movement Power, that can also slow people down by its factor.
Well, its been interesting to follow. I have a version of the spell, that I'll try to sell to my GM.
All I was trying to do, was to design a spell that, in effect, copied, or tried to copy, the critter Movement Power.
And it seems it has run full circle, now that sanctusmortis brings up the flipside of the Movement Power, that can also slow people down by its factor.
Well, its been interesting to follow. I have a version of the spell, that I'll try to sell to my GM.
Yeah, I'd say you should be able to increase and decrease speed. Seems sensible.
The idea of speeding up by force 6 is a nightmare... maybe speeding up should be a straight multiplier (speed + speed x force, or else level 1 is useless), so rather than of, say, running 15km/h and then applying force 6 to go a frightening 960km/h(!!!), it was a simple 105... That's still damn fast, and I'd be doing Body tests to not overexert.
Hey, I think we have a spell: Alter Velocity. Suddenly we also have bullet time
The idea of speeding up by force 6 is a nightmare... maybe speeding up should be a straight multiplier (speed + speed x force, or else level 1 is useless), so rather than of, say, running 15km/h and then applying force 6 to go a frightening 960km/h(!!!), it was a simple 105... That's still damn fast, and I'd be doing Body tests to not overexert.
Hey, I think we have a spell: Alter Velocity. Suddenly we also have bullet time
| QUOTE (Zesha White) |
| It's been 14 years since I took a high school physics class so I googled 'inertia' to see if I still remembered what it meant. The sight I went to was: http://www.fearofphysics.com/w.php?define=inertia Inertia is the tendancy of an object in motion to stay in motion or for an object at rest to stay at rest (which is what I remembered). So, if you negate something's inertia, if it is moving then it will want to stop and if it is resting it will want to move? Seems pretty logical, but I am not a physicist. The way I interpreted this was that you have a guy on a plane and all of a sudden he stopped. He has no movement what so ever. Why? Because he was in motion but after the spell took affect his mass wanted to stop (negated inertia of a moving object) and since there was plenty of air to provide resistance and friction from his feet on the carpet, he stopped. The plane, on the other hand, was not affected by the spell and kept on going. The spell ended a split second later, inertia is normal for the guy, and all of a sudden he colides with the back of the plane which in effect would be like falling half an inch but at 350 miles per hour. I'm not saying that that is what would really happen, just how I would interpret it happening. |
That site provided a simplistic and rather inaccurate view of inertia. It seemed logical in Newton's time but today the poor wording is obvious.
Inertia is the tendancy of an object to resist changes in velocity. It means that it takes some effort to throw a bowling ball and it takes the same ammount of efort to effort to stop the same bowling ball.
In reality, there is no such thing as an object at rest. Everything in the universe is moving in an abosulte frame of referance. Things only appear to be at rest because they are moving at the same velocity that the observer is. The Earth is orbiting the sun and rotating, for example. It appears to be stationary to the people on the surface because they are orbiting the sun and rotating at the exact same velocity.
Everything in at rest realitive to the airplane. Therefore negating inertia wouldn't do much. Air resistance and friction would just push him along with the plane.
The two real problems lie with kinetic energy and gravity.
In order to accelerate an object you have to apply kinetic energy to it. To deccelerate an object you have to remove kinetic energy from it.
Inertia is simply the value of how much kenetic energy you need to apply or remove in order to change the velocity of an object.
Kinetic energy = (mass * velocity^2)/2
It takes 1 joule to accelerate a 1 kilogram object to (squareroot of 2) meters per second. 2 joules accelerate a 1 kilogram object to 2 meters per second
3 jouls accelerate a 1 kilogram object to (squareroot of 3) meters per second.
And so on.
This breaks down as one aproaches lightspeed. But hat doesn't matter to us.
Now, if you take this 1 kilogram object with 1 joule of kenetic energy and half its Inertia you have the equivilant of a .5 kilogram object with 1 joule of kenetic energy. With its new inertia this object should be moving at 2 meters per second.
Therefore, removing inertia would cause an object to instantly accelerate within an absolute frame of referance. The person would actually go kersplat against the front of the plane.
If you remove enough inertia you risk being flung out into space or worse.
Gravity is the other problem. The Earth's gravity provides a realitivly constant 9.8m/s acceleration to everything regardess of mass because gravity and inertia work against each other.
If you decrease the inertia of an object would decreasing its gravity then you will fall toward the ground that much faster.
Oh, and there is a disentigrate spell. Turn to Goo. A sustained transformation manipulation. Unfortunatly, it hasn't been canon since 1st edition. They really need to bring it back with some modifications to fit the new system.
I agree, decreasing inertia would result in all kinds of unpleasant effects.
However, if the intent of the spell is to reduce momentum or, as suggested by sanctusmortis, velocity (which is even simpler, though more powerful) then it would be highly beneficial.
However, if the intent of the spell is to reduce momentum or, as suggested by sanctusmortis, velocity (which is even simpler, though more powerful) then it would be highly beneficial.
You'd have to really tweak it- I'm thinking it should only be able to affect items of at least Dwarf size, dropping the bullet problem out of the picture. It'd need to be a sustainable, otherwise it's pretty damn useless. And the drain better be serious. If put through some good balancing, I think it'd make a good spell. I'm beginning to think the two - accelerate and decelerate - should maybe be seperate. I think, personally, I'd definately take the Deceleration.
Heh, negating inertia would be even worse than you guys are saying. If you were on the front-end of the earth (ie, the side facing its orbital direction) and you negated all of your inertia, you'd literally be hit by the fragging earth at 65000 miles per hour. If you were on the back end of the earth, you'd find the earth moving away at the same speed -- ie, you'd almost instantly be in space. If you were on the sides, you'd have the pleasure of flying through a bunch of buildings, mountains, whatever, at 65k mph before flying into space.
Bad, bad stuff. And, the energy needed to accomplish this would probably fry any mage attempting it.
The person who suggested "negate velocity" is on the right track, but what you might really want is simply to apply the levitation spell exactly as a "decelerator." In other words, it can more or less do an acceleration of 9.8m/s^2 in any direction (1G), but won't continue to accelerate an object past 6m/s.
Bad, bad stuff. And, the energy needed to accomplish this would probably fry any mage attempting it.
The person who suggested "negate velocity" is on the right track, but what you might really want is simply to apply the levitation spell exactly as a "decelerator." In other words, it can more or less do an acceleration of 9.8m/s^2 in any direction (1G), but won't continue to accelerate an object past 6m/s.
Hmm, this all reminds me of something I found for the other game. Power word: halt. I don't remember the exact wording, but the end result was that everything in an area lost all kinetic energy relative to the earth. Afterwards, only the potential energy of things in the area would remain, and if something was in an unstable state, kinetic energy could start again. For example, you cast it on an arrow flying through the air, it suddenly halts. Then, having no kinetic energy but also no support, gravity affects it, and it falls strait to the ground.
For a person falling from the sky, you'd need to cast it fairly close to the ground (good luck), and you'd stop, then resume falling at zero velocity.
For a person falling from the sky, you'd need to cast it fairly close to the ground (good luck), and you'd stop, then resume falling at zero velocity.
I think that casting the spell on a bullet would be next to impossible given that they're difficult to see and also that it takes an entire initiative pass to cast a spell (while bullets fly significantly faster). As a result a crafty mage might be able to kill the velocity of one bullet if he were trying very hard and got lucky, which I think is reasonable.
Regarding the duration, I was thinking that if the spell were instantaneous it would instantly and permanently alter the targets velocity by a fixed amount so that it wouldn't need to be sustained (more or less like fling). It could also be sustained and only alter the velocity while sustained, which wouuld limit the spell's effectiveness.
I think that the accelerate spell would be largely useless since most of the effects that would be desired of it are covered by fling, levitate and the movement power. Decelerate , on the other hand, would be alarmingly useful.
Regarding the duration, I was thinking that if the spell were instantaneous it would instantly and permanently alter the targets velocity by a fixed amount so that it wouldn't need to be sustained (more or less like fling). It could also be sustained and only alter the velocity while sustained, which wouuld limit the spell's effectiveness.
I think that the accelerate spell would be largely useless since most of the effects that would be desired of it are covered by fling, levitate and the movement power. Decelerate , on the other hand, would be alarmingly useful.
| QUOTE (DrJest) |
| For some reason I had the sudden worry that he was planning to go supralight with this... anyone remember E.E. "Doc" Smith's FTL travel solution in the Lensman books? |
I'm glad I'm not the only one who does. I loved the 'coruscating pyrotechnics' etc. etc. I'm bidding for a GURPS Lensman book on eBay at the moment!
Activate the Bergenholms!
Throw balance out the window, I saw. Just for a few sessions with throwaway characters, just to have fun with this. Smack people with the planet, or sling them into space. Make the fools fall into buildings and the back of airplanes. 
Then of course, someone does it on a GMC Bulldog, which then goes flying at the players...
Then of course, someone does it on a GMC Bulldog, which then goes flying at the players...
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