05-07-2017, 09:18 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Oct 2014
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Conjuring highly unstable compounds
So there are spells to conjure food, water and things like that.
So, why couldn't there be a spell to conjure something like Chlorine Trifluoride? How would such a spell work? |
05-07-2017, 09:31 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Re: Conjuring highly unstable compounds
Dangerously. :)
More seriously, I see no reason why you couldn't research a spell that did that. Based on what I know of chlorine trifloride, it would do some amount of burning damage (with all the Incendiary modifiers), plus cyclical toxic damage, as it poisons you if it didn't burn you to death. For the energy cost, I'd put it at something like 2 or 3 energy per burning damage die, and just say it was creating relatively little ClF3 with each casting. |
05-07-2017, 10:14 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Conjuring highly unstable compounds
At what TL are you planning to come up with this? Chlorine was discovered in 1774, fluorine in 1810 (but not successfully isolated until 1886!), and chlorine trifluoride was first produced in 1930. That's historically TL5-6. At TL4 they didn't even have the concept of chlorine; the guy who isolated it called it "dephlogisticated muriatic acid air." I'm hesitant to think you can magically produce a substance you have no concept of.
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05-07-2017, 01:35 PM | #4 |
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Conjuring highly unstable compounds
I lump that under "Create Acid". And I put a "Create Base" in the Earth College for my games, but the Wizard is required to either be of a high enough TL that those concepts are background knowledge or have Alchemy/Chemistry at a 12.
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05-07-2017, 02:21 PM | #5 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Conjuring highly unstable compounds
It's magic, so it's more about the effects than specifics. It should be balanced against other destructive spells of similar energy costs.
If one gram does the damage of one pound of something created by another spell, then that's how much it should conjure/create.
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05-07-2017, 03:11 PM | #6 | |
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Location: Indianapolis, IN
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Re: Conjuring highly unstable compounds
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Joseph Paul |
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05-07-2017, 03:24 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Conjuring highly unstable compounds
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05-07-2017, 03:54 PM | #8 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Conjuring highly unstable compounds
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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05-07-2017, 04:04 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Nov 2004
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Re: Conjuring highly unstable compounds
After all, there's no canonical GURPS setting where spell magic coexists with high technology where a spell like this might occur or anything.
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05-07-2017, 04:20 PM | #10 |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Conjuring highly unstable compounds
Although whether this is a problem may depend on just how much creativity the magic itself brings to the exercise.
If you can, for instance, ask your magic to make a stone golem burn without telling it how, it might come up with Chlorine Trifluoride as the means. And after that you'd have a possibility for asking for more of the same. Spirit-assisted magic could produce that sort of thing pretty logically.
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