Control Magnetism

[pawsplay]

What can you do with Control Mangetism? At 20 points a level, it should get you something, but I'm coming up pretty dry. What you can do:

- Per level, gain a +1 resistance, or a -1 to an opponent's hit roll in the area
- Perform a power block to gain DR 1 per level
- Increase the intensity of magnetism by 10% per level in the area... what does that mean? What can you do with that, other than causing magnets to stick really well to the fridge?
- Redirect or insulate magnetism... possibly useful, since this means you could potentially shut off another magnetic's powers if you can dominate the controlled area

You cannot:
- Really shape or do much of anything
- Make anything out of magnetism

It seems really weak compared to other versions of Create. In fact, its hard to visualize anything to do with it apart from using it to gain a somewhat configurable defense. And ruin 3.5" floppies.

[Adelus]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

It seems really weak compared to other versions of Create. In fact, its hard to visualize anything to do with it apart from using it to gain a somewhat configurable defense. And ruin 3.5" floppies.

Strap area affect and, IIRC, collective onto it and threaten to take a stroll through corporate headquarters, hospitals, etc, unless a ransom is paid... being able to wipe data from electronics can certainly cause hell for businesses and any institution that requires lots of electronic record keeping nowadays.

[vitruvian]

Strap area affect and, IIRC, collective onto it and threaten to take a stroll through corporate headquarters, hospitals, etc, unless a ransom is paid... being able to wipe data from electronics can certainly cause hell for businesses and any institution that requires lots of electronic record keeping nowadays.

Control comes with a built-in area, unless I'm very much mistaken.

But, yeah, the main uses for Control Magnetism out of very rare settings (e.g., next to a hospital MRI, next to an electromagnet used for lifting scrap cars, etc.) would be to mess with electronics and electronic media.

Create Magnetism might be more useful in some ways, allowing you to have all the ferrous and other magnetizable materials around fly around a bit.

The main use would probably just to be a high-point power that takes AAs like TK with Magnetic, etc.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

Control comes with a built-in area, unless I'm very much mistaken.

But, yeah, the main uses for Control Magnetism out of very rare settings (e.g., next to a hospital MRI, next to an electromagnet used for lifting scrap cars, etc.) would be to mess with electronics and electronic media.

Create Magnetism might be more useful in some ways, allowing you to have all the ferrous and other magnetizable materials around fly around a bit.

Yeah, Control has a built in area/mass per level effect, and can't be combined with AE because of that.
The ability to mess up electronics could be pretty useful by itself. I'd expect clever Magnetism Controllers to come up with other ways to exercise their ability, but you can always rule it to be a lower significance category. Create and Control together always have potential, though you can often achieve similar results cheaper.

[vicky_molokh]

I nice method of ruining someone's Field Sense? Don't know, maybe we should take Control (Electromagnetism) for anything really impressive. That should be able to do a lot more. I have no idea if magnetism alone can be used on humans to any measurable effects (unlike electromag).

[Bruno]

The earth's magnetic field is constantly present, albeit weak. Any engine that generates electricity has a magnetic field. Any motor that runs on electricity has a magnetic field.

Hell, any line conducting power has a weak magnetic field.

You can kill cars by blowing out the electronics in the motor.
You can generate an electrical current in a coil of wire by fluxing the strength and direction of the Earths magnetic field. Heck, you can RUN an electrically powered motor by carefully magnifying and cycling the earths magnetic field, as far as I know.

You can encumber or trap people wearing too much metal by greatly enhancing the earths field (or the field from a power line or some other source!).

Disarm badguys or just cause their guns to malfunction by inducing magnetism in them, causing parts to stick together or separate in a way that's bad for the gun.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Molokh

I have no idea if magnetism alone can be used on humans to any measurable effects (unlike electromag).

A naked normal human with no implants or tatoos? You can actually futz with their brain function with strong magnetic fields. The magnetism (if powerful enough) starts messing with the electro part of the electrochemical reaction we call thoughts. So far they've induced out of body experiences, I'm not sure what else they can do.

You can also induce heat in some kinds of old tattoo with high iron content in the ink, although you probably won't get better than a point of burning damage every 30 seconds or so unless you can boost magnetic fields higher than an MRI.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Bruno

A naked normal human with no implants or tatoos? You can actually futz with their brain function with strong magnetic fields. The magnetism (if powerful enough) starts messing with the electro part of the electrochemical reaction we call thoughts. So far they've induced out of body experiences, I'm not sure what else they can do.

You can also induce heat in some kinds of old tattoo with high iron content in the ink, although you probably won't get better than a point of burning damage every 30 seconds or so unless you can boost magnetic fields higher than an MRI.

Are you sure that a ±100% modifier to mag fields will be enough? Higher levels are a big point budget issue. Unlike electromag or electric, which should probably be enough to disrupt most brain processing at level 5, and fully shut it down at level 10.

[Fnordianslip]

Originally Posted by Bruno

You can actually futz with their brain function with strong magnetic fields. The magnetism (if powerful enough) starts messing with the electro part of the electrochemical reaction we call thoughts.

This would require a very, very high level of magnetism control. The Earth's field is around 60 microteslas in strength. A good MRI is around 3 teslas, or 50,000 times the strength of Earth's magnetic field. To mess with brain functions, you'd probably need an order of magnitude stronger of a field. So, maybe buying a stunning attack as an alternate ability would be good, but Control is right out.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Bruno

A naked normal human with no implants or tatoos? You can actually futz with their brain function with strong magnetic fields. The magnetism (if powerful enough) starts messing with the electro part of the electrochemical reaction we call thoughts. So far they've induced out of body experiences, I'm not sure what else they can do.

They've been able to induce vague senses of nervousness and a sense of being watched. That's it, and that was with absurdly strong fields applied directly to the scalp.

Originally Posted by Bruno

You can also induce heat in some kinds of old tattoo with high iron content in the ink, although you probably won't get better than a point of burning damage every 30 seconds or so unless you can boost magnetic fields higher than an MRI.

The tattoo thing is an urban myth that sounds logical but just doesn't work.