Conjuring highly unstable compounds

[Buzzardo]

I can imagine a tech-magic setting in which the cheapest way to get antimatter to power your starship is to conjure it magically.

I can also imagine a low-tech setting in which someone accidentally conjures up antimatter, because the GM and (hopefully) the players have decided to move on to a new campaign.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

After all, there's no canonical GURPS setting where spell magic coexists with high technology where a spell like this might occur or anything.

I never said any such thing. What I did was to ASK the OP what setting they were envisioning, and what TL it was. If they're playing in Technomancer it's one thing, but if they're playing in Roma Arcana it's another.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

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.

I don't think of it that way. Magic is *supernatural*. If you ask it to do something that, as far as you know, is naturally impossible, it doesn't have to create some natural substance, process, or energy that can do the thing you're wishing for. It just creates a violation of the laws of nature.

Beyond that, what the OP asked for wasn't "a magical fluid that can set fire to stone"; it was "chlorine trifluoride."

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Buzzardo

I can also imagine a low-tech setting in which someone accidentally conjures up antimatter, because the GM and (hopefully) the players have decided to move on to a new campaign.

Antimatter conjuration doesn't have to be campaign-ending. A kilogram of the stuff is like a big nuke, sure, but it's survivable from just a few miles away so long as you don't have a clear line of sight for the thermal pulse.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I don't think of it that way. Magic is *supernatural*. If you ask it to do something that, as far as you know, is naturally impossible, it doesn't have to create some natural substance, process, or energy that can do the thing you're wishing for. It just creates a violation of the laws of nature.

Beyond that, what the OP asked for wasn't "a magical fluid that can set fire to stone"; it was "chlorine trifluoride."

There are many ways magic can work. Under some of them, hosing the golem down with chlorine trifluoride would be a likely outcome. Under others it wouldn't be.

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by whswhs

If you don't know what to ask for no spell can give it to you.

I'd add "except as a Critical Failure result". Those can bring all sorts of fun.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Antimatter conjuration doesn't have to be campaign-ending. A kilogram of the stuff is like a big nuke, sure, but it's survivable from just a few miles away so long as you don't have a clear line of sight for the thermal pulse.

How much of a party is going to be that far away from a teammate when he casts a spell like this?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by simply Nathan

How much of a party is going to be that far away from a teammate when he casts a spell like this?

If they know their teammate is prone to experimental conjurations? Maybe all of them whenever remotely possible.

But Buzzardo didn't say the one conjuring antimatter was a PC.

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If they know their teammate is prone to experimental conjurations? Maybe all of them whenever remotely possible.

But Buzzardo didn't say the one conjuring antimatter was a PC.

If an NPC conjures antimatter that destroys a city-sized area while they're not around is just background flavor about why the ruins are in ruins. And a party of adventurers straying miles away from each other just sounds immensely impractical - "safe" distance for dangerous conjuring is still within arrowing distance, usually. You don't want your friend to be unprotected if he accidentally summons a demon or something.

[Buzzardo]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Antimatter conjuration doesn't have to be campaign-ending. A kilogram of the stuff is like a big nuke, sure, but it's survivable from just a few miles away so long as you don't have a clear line of sight for the thermal pulse.

My current campaign is centered on a city. A large explosion would mean a new campaign.

I've just recently started a new campaign set in an old world that my players loved, so I wouldn't want to restart again just now. Down the road, though.... ;)

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by simply Nathan

If an NPC conjures antimatter that destroys a city-sized area while they're not around is just background flavor about why the ruins are in ruins.

Not if it happens during the campaign.

Originally Posted by simply Nathan

And a party of adventurers straying miles away from each other just sounds immensely impractical - "safe" distance for dangerous conjuring is still within arrowing distance, usually. You don't want your friend to be unprotected if he accidentally summons a demon or something.

If the guy's messing around with magic that might take out a city-sized area? (Which summoning a demon may accomplish just as well as the antimatter would.) I think there's a certain practicality to worrying more about not letting that happen to you than about protecting them from the consequences of their actions.

Originally Posted by Buzzardo

My current campaign is centered on a city. A large explosion would mean a new campaign.

Okay, yes, if your campaign scope is largely within the few-mile radius of devastation, there you go (up in radioactive smoke).