From:	Iridios iridios@********.net
Subject:	Buildings, doors, maglocks, and magic
Date:	Mon, 12 Jun 2000 07:43:19 -0400

Gurth wrote:
>
> Here's something that came up in a game recently, and caused a bit of an
> argument between the GM (me) and one of the other players: can you target
> a door or a lock, that's part of a building, with magic?

<snip>

> The player's argument was mainly that I had allowed spells like Ram Touch
> to blast holes in walls or destroy doors without having to target (and
> collapse) the whole house, so Turn To Goo should be able to do something
> similar. Thinking about it quickly during the session, I decided that I
> had probably been wrong in the past to let Ram Touch do that in the first
> place. Was I?

IMC, I would rule that Turn to Goo could be used to target doors,
windows, or etc. Why? The way I see it, it's because of the percieved
scale of things. IMO, most often people think of cars as whole cars,
and not as parts. But when they think about buildings they think
about rooms, doors, and hallways. Very seldom as whole buildings. I
would think this is more true with larger buildings such as
skyscrapers.

>
> The second problem, refered to above, is that if you make a building a
> single target, BTB it becomes too easy to destroy one if you use the rules
> for barrier ratings. Buildings should have a barrier rating that's higher
> than that of their walls, as it's a "whole is greater than the sum of the
> parts" type of deal, but how would you represent this in SR?

I would come up with a "Building Classification" modifier. Just off
the top of my head, hardened buildings such as military/corp security
facilities would have a x5 modifier (avg wall rating x 5 = structure
rating). While a warehouse might have x1.5 modifier. The modifiers
could be adjusted up or down to reflect construction quality. These
numbers are off the cuff and may need adjusting.

--
Iridios
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