From:	korishinzo@*****.com (Ice Heart)
Subject:	Lightning Ball vs Vehicle. Uber Spell or How Does It Work?
Date:	Fri, 29 Jul 2005 09:12:28 -0700 (PDT)

> In the particular case (the ball lightning and the vehicle)
> the lightning will not manifest inside the vehicle if the
> spell caster cannot perceive the inside of the vehicle,
> and all the electrical elemental effects will be dealt
> with by the vehicle's Faraday Effect...
>
> However, if the caster *can* see inside the vehicle,
> then the effects do occur inside, specifically because
> it is an AE spell. That's why AE spells are so bloody
> expensive in terms of Drain when one tries to build
> them.

Careful. Remember that Ball Lightning is a Manipulation spell, not a
Combat spell. The AoE rules apply a little differently in the two
cases. If the Lightning Ball did manage to penetrate the vehicle
armor, the occupants would be potentially effected even if the mage
had no idea they were there. OTOH, if the mage could see them but
could not penetrate the vehicle's armor, they are safe from that
mage's Manipulation spell. Now, he could switch to Manaball and
toast everyone in the vehicle he could see. Elemental Manipulations
conjure physical effects, that then operate on everything around them
in accordance with physical laws. In effect, the mage is summoning
an electrical bomb into existance with a timer of .00001 seconds.
When the timer hits 0, the bomb goes off, resolving damage the same
way you would if the bomb had somehow been fabricated without magic.

And secondary elemental effects are not a "muddying" of the waters.
:) One cannot talk about Elemental Manipulation magic without
taking them into consideration. Even if the spell does almost
nothing beyond dazzle everyone, it still conjured a physical effect.
So the Fireball didn't even phase the sammie in military armor. It
still set the building he's in on fire. And that could become a
problem. :)

======Korishinzo
--You know what sucks? Pretty soon, you are all going to be arguing
SR4 mechanics, and I will not be able to wax pedantic about anything
because I will still be completing my collection of SR3 books. :p



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