Just looking for you guys opinion, i hope i've made this balanced, but then again it might not be, feel free to rip it apart. thanks in advance.


Type: P Range: T Duration: S DV: (f /2 ) +4

target gain the Power "Mist Form" (pg289) with the following changes:

* Movement: MV while in mistform is equal to (Magic + Net Hits) in meters / combat turn.
* Immunity to Normal weapons: As per the power (including it being hardened) except armor rating is equal to (Net Hits x 2).
* All equipment not bound to the character (aka focus's) fall to the floor, and do not become mist. Focus's bound with karma become mist, and travel with the character, but still become effectivly useless against physical targets (aka. that Force 4 sustaining flak jacket doesn't do anything to that full auto spray heading your way ^_^) Weapon focus's have no effect against physical targets but still work against astral or dual-natured individuals. (treat physical stats as normal for purposes of figuring out attack and damage).
* the force of the spell must equal the Body of the target.


Looking forward to your suggestions. some things i've thought about doing is making the spell self only. Placing a threshold on the spell, right now you only need 1 success to get the spell to go off, but then again even with just 1 success your probably going to be hurting with the drain resist. i've thought about lowering the dv of the spell by 1, i think 2 might be way too low, but 5 seems a bit much as well.

As for threshold i am not sure where or what to set it at. right now its beneficial to cast the spell at a higher force level, as both the armor value and speed increase, thats one of the reasons i think i might have overcompensated for the DV value, but i think ill go with what you guys suggest.

anyway its been a long day, i am heading to bed....hate night sifts....blarg.

I´d have movement be slow and menecing, and make the big benefit the immunity to weapons. (wraiths are tiny horrors as idicated by Harlequin´s post in Paranormal Animals of Europe, so maybe this should be blood magic?)

I would have all their gear be immune to its effects (as in it doesn't change with him and falls to the floor). That way it follows more with the (animal)form and shapechange spells already in the book.

Definitely make gear immune, like Superbum suggested. Also, double the DV for all area effect attacks (grenades, fireballs, etc.) to represent the dispersal effect of such attacks on your mist form.

updated movement, i made it magic + net hits

as for making it blood magic, im not realy trying to become a wraith, just be abel to go mistform and slid through cracks in doorways/windows, ect. thats the intention of the spell, i was basiing it off of the "mist form" power simply because that already had the mechanics for monsters going into a misted form.

Im sitting on the fense about removing its effect on equipment, im beginning to see that as a major limitation to the current spell. it would loose its effectiveness in infiltration, or bypassing doors. and just having to keep putting your equipment back on every time would suck. Unfortunately the mist form power in the sr4 book doesnt say one way or the other. maybe ill flip a coin. sigh

It was never intended to be an armor spell and the only reason why that is in there, is that it made sense. If you are in mist form bullets should realy not have any effect on you therefore "immunity to natural weapons", but that power as writen would be too powerfull, and thats why armor = net hits x 2, i was contemplating making it only x 1, but realized with teh loss of normal armor (either it droping off of you or just being mist) would in the end make you more vulnerable to normal weapons, which didnt sit well with me.

As for the increase in DV....hmm, this is something i think is already in there, not actualy spelled out in mine, but in the Mist form power which this is based off of. here let me find the sentence "....but is vulnerable to strong winds, which may push/disrupt the mist and disorient teh being." there are no hard rules...no, but any gm worth his salt will use that to the maximum, and mine will, hehe. but ill talk it over with him and see what he thinks.

The reason for the gear immunity is to prevent it from being too usefull. It gear wasn't immune to the effects and changed with you, than I would see no reason that every mage in existance wouldn't have this spell. Being able to slip through most security without being noticed and you get all your stuff still? Hell yeah, if I was a mage I would do it.

With what I suggested, the player can slip past a barricade, perhaps open said barricade, then return and get his gear. Much more balanced and a challenge for the player. Not to mention it adds more realism to the spell since all other shapechange spells in SR4 make you lose or flat out damage your clothes upon shifting.

I do agree with you about it being non-blood magic. You aren't really turning into a wraith as much as you are turning into mist.

As for the equipment thing, cut it down the middle. Bonded foci go with you mundane equipment doesn't. Because the only thing more fun than having a naked troll combat mage charge at you with a claymore is having a naked troll combat mage who is happy to see you charge at you with a claymore.

Like Superbum said. If you allow this to work on armor and gear, every run turns into "cast Wraithform, float past defenses, drop spell long enough to grab target, float back to Johnson, collect payment".

lol, Hyzmarca, funny image that I hope I never see. I do like your idea about bonded foci going with you and I would probably allow that.

Updated it again.

I took your sugestions, and made it so all gear except focuses that have been bound to you fall to the ground. I never thought of it as a way of bypassing all opposition, pick up the item you are after and leave again...and after some thought there was no other way to prevent this spell from being used this way. So i agree the spell should not turn normal eq into mist as well.

I slightly lowered the DV value from +5 to +4 but i think i might up that again to +5, let me know what you guys think. At +5 i think it is almost certainly going to cause some drain as is, and with the current limitations not sure if its worth a full +5, but then again that hardeneded armor is really nasty....sigh i didn't even want it as part of the spell but it makes too much sense to remove it.

anyway, thanks for all the help.

If the hardened armor bothers you, you could just give them armor equal to twice the force it was cast at instead.

How it compare as a defensive spell for the firendly neighboorhood combat mage. Turn into mist, stick into a sustaining focus. Stand in the midde of gunfight, throwing lighting right and left?

Casting armor with 10 dice gets ~3 points of armor.

Casting this at force 5 (so it's still stun drain) and getting (lvl 10?) hardened armor certainly beats the crap out of that.

Well, I meant as non-hardened armor, but good point.

I originaly thought the +2 B/I per hit was too nasty at first myself, but some of the reasons why i think while number wise seem better then the armor spell but turn out to be not better is this:

1) Armor spell stacks with anything but other magical protection (natural and worn).
2) Wraithform only stacks with Magical Protection, and even then barring some weired rules for some future power, only 1 Magic Protection (so you can have Wraithform and Armor and they will stack fine, but you can have those two and another form of magic protection)
3) Worn armor is VERY good, i dont have the book in front of me right now but i belive Flack Jacket is (8/6).

After taking these into consideration, knowing that normal and worn armor will have no effect whatsoever, the +2 per hit isn't that nasty, even at 5 successes thats still only 10/10 armor, and between AP, decent successes and using some special ammo can easily get the NET DV of an attack over 10, and you still need to resist (in is current incarnation) (5 / 2) +4 = 6DV Drain each time you cast this spell. (7 if i increase the DV value to +5 where i had it before).

The only reason why ive kept the Hardened aspect is it makes sense, your mist so therefore bullets and other physical objects should be very hard to actualy hurt you, but i might drop that just to make sure its not abused.....

some other drawbacks of the spell:

1) its slow, your only moving 5 + net hits/combat turn, thtats it, no ability to run
2) all equipment drops(except focuses)


Im also going to update the spell to specificaly say (all equipment becomes physicly useless, armor, weapons, ect to prevent people from making armor into a focus and then trying to get a gm to alow it to stop bullets. (it might go with you but its still mist))

thanks for all the feedback, its definately giving me things to think about.