03-25-2020, 12:05 PM | #21 | ||
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(If you have to ask . . .) Join Date: Feb 2005
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Re: [Magic] So Lasers Can Hurt Ghosts
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Per said Kromm quote, I would say, "Is magic directly responsible for the damage?" "Yep, totally immune." Fireball (the character, and the spell), would be unable to directly damage a Manaplasm. But, should Seven Shadow throw an oil flask at the Manaplasm, and Fireball (the Character) then blast the flask, the resulting mundane fireball would affect the Manaplasm. However, Ghosts do not have this ability. And lasers, as presented in GURPS Ultratech, do not have Affects Insubstantial. So, no, in RAW, Lasers cannot hurt ghosts. |
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03-25-2020, 12:27 PM | #22 |
Join Date: Aug 2018
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Re: [Magic] So Lasers Can Hurt Ghosts
I'm trying to remember what a Ghost is specifically... like if there was a metatrait for it...
H18 has "See Invisible (Ghosts)" which "lets him see specters, whether their invisibility stems from magic, spirit powers, or something else" H20 has "Ghostly Movement" H23 has "Ghostly Repetition" H77 references "ghost templates in Horror" ah here we go, there's a ghost template on H78... They are built using the Spirit metatrait so B263 gives them usually-on Insubstantiality... Since they can turn substantial, you could presumably laser them to death (or even punch them to death) while they're in substantial form, so the more accurate thing to say would be "normally lasers can't hurt ghosts while they're insubstantial" H78's "Apparition" lens on the other hand, has always-on insubstantiality so they can never be hurt/killed by normal weapons unless you had some way of turning them substantial. |
03-25-2020, 05:17 PM | #23 | |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: [Magic] So Lasers Can Hurt Ghosts
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03-25-2020, 06:02 PM | #24 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: [Magic] So Lasers Can Hurt Ghosts
Yes missile spells can cross into no mana zones because when you remove the magic from them they are still fast moving lumps of rock or balls of hot plasma. That doesn't mean there is no magic in them.
Last edited by David Johnston2; 03-25-2020 at 10:46 PM. |
03-25-2020, 06:25 PM | #25 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: [Magic] So Lasers Can Hurt Ghosts
It doesn't even mean magic isn't holding them together in the no mana zone given that a lot of things that couldn't exist at all without magic suffer damage over time in a no mana zone, they don't instantly cease to be. It apparently takes time for the magic to bleed out of stuff.
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04-06-2020, 04:26 AM | #26 |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: [Magic] So Lasers Can Hurt Ghosts
First of all, sorry for the Necro, but I think I've figured out/remembered why I don't like the idea that the projectiles from Missile Spells are still magical, that is the idea that they're conjured matter that can be dispelled. And it's really simple: Magic Resistance, if MR doesn't protect you it's likely that whatever hurting/affecting you directly isn't actually magic.
Yeah this whole thing creates a big brain hurt where you can have one trait that doesn't protect you against magical fireballs and another that some how can, it creates an internal problem and I think highlights the fact that GURPS doesn't deal with required secondary powers very well. |
04-06-2020, 09:28 AM | #27 | |
Join Date: Aug 2018
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Re: [Magic] So Lasers Can Hurt Ghosts
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I think it's something like magic still exists but it's made dormant? I'm guessing you might be referring to stuff that might have Dependency (Mana)? I guess we could look at missile spells that way? One thing I wonder though... okay so you can throw fireballs across No Mana zones... but can you CARRY the fireball (you cast it in Normal Mana, then walked it into there) into a No Mana zone and THEN throw it, or is mana at least required to safely handle the fireball without losing control and injuring yourself with it? |
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04-06-2020, 01:53 PM | #28 | |
Join Date: Mar 2020
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Re: [Magic] So Lasers Can Hurt Ghosts
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The point here is that when you go down that rabbit hole there really is no 'good' answer that 'makes sense' because a lot of the premises of this sort of thing directly violate core assumptions of physics, etc. So I'd say just decide, for yourself, how it works and whether it 'makes sense' should be more an issue of setting and play balance, because reasoning about ghosts is a dead end street. The same goes for arguments about most supers, they make *no* sense and violate physics routinely, there is literally nothing more than aesthetics and tropes one can even 'argue' about in any strict sense because there simply is no 'truth of the matter'. The basic assumptions of the genre almost invariably mean logic, causality and material reality are already out the window. Comic books only 'make sense' because we ignore this sort of glaring (and sometimes not-so-glaring) nonsense in the genre, attempting to analyze them (in RPGs or otherwise) invariably shows that they make no sense, even internally. No matter what direction you decide to go in in the end, it's basically arbitrary or dictated by reasons (tropes, aesthetics) other than the 'logic of the case', of which there is none. For my part, I didn't go with Magic because it's kind of a boring system and most of the spells are very generic. Last edited by Abrasax; 04-06-2020 at 01:58 PM. |
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04-07-2020, 06:49 AM | #29 | |
Join Date: Aug 2018
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Re: [Magic] So Lasers Can Hurt Ghosts
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Insubstantiality (and Invisibility too, for sight) causes interesting questions about how things like vision or breathing or hearing work, I think we just tend to hand-wave them. |
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04-07-2020, 09:35 AM | #30 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: [Magic] So Lasers Can Hurt Ghosts
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bane, insubstantiality |
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