| From: | . Callahan callahan421@*******.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Subject: Re: Buildings, doors, maglocks, and magic |
| Date: | Mon, 12 Jun 2000 16:34:50 EDT |
>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 >arget a
>door or a lock, that's part of a building, with magic?
>This was brought up by the player's character, a houngan, having >learned
>an SR3 version of the SR1 spell Turn To Goo with the specific >intention of
>turning doors or locks to goo to gain easy entrance to >buildings or rooms.
>I said no, explaining that, because you also can't target parts of a
>vehicle with magic, components of a building follow that rule too. IOW,
>either you turn the whole house to goo, or you don't turn anything to >goo
Here's a couple of suggestions for an alternative to this functionality in a
spell instead of getting into the debate about targeting:
1. A 'passwall' or 'portable hole' spell
- sustainable physical spell creates a breach of some size in a wall or
door, based on the spell's successes, the BR of the wall. Loosely based on
'Move Earth', this moves the matter of the wall out of your way for a little
while. This is drain intensive, based on the mods to a spell like this.
2. A 'picklock' spell
- based on oh, say Magic Fingers or something similar, designed to move
tumblers into position for the door to be unlocked. You'll probably need
something else for maglocks/electrics.
3. A really high level 'Control Thoughts' spell... if your mage player is
such a reclusive and misanthropic hermit that he can't just get the team's
rogue-type to help, he can at least command a likely thief/lockpick/B&E type
to do his work for him. :)
A further note: I would also encourage the player to bend his thoughts
toward less obtrusive ways of getting what he wants. I mean, isn't
Shadowrunning about /subtlety/? Maybe I'm missing the point, but turning a
lock to goo ain't that subtle, IMHO.
Regards,
Callahan
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