Collect Lightning, Rule World

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

It still makes the spell only useful in high tech societies where basic tech would be much better.
It makes what I think is the purpose of the spell impossible. A lone wizard or small coven using natural resources for magical power.

The spell was never intended to allow lone wizard or small covens using natural resources to achieve any useful amount of magical power.

It was/is intended to allow high tech wizards to use power cells to power spells (IE- when everyone is running around using energy weapons, glue cannons, and sonic stunners with effectively unlimited ammo, you need to give the wizard access to that unlimited ammo too or they become less useful than the guy with the bigger backpack).

It also had some application in BIG SPACE adventures with magic, because a coven a wizards on a spaceship could access enough power to do useful things on the scale of space interaction.

As well indicated by GURPS: Technomancer draw power was not intended to be useful even into TL 8 (/early 9)- they gave the technomancer universe direct atomic power->manna conversions via technology, and industrial enchanting spells.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

It still makes the spell only useful in high tech societies where basic tech would be much better.
It makes what I think is the purpose of the spell impossible. A lone wizard or small coven using natural resources for magical power.

That's because it's not the purpose of the spell. The spell is part of the Tech college. The purpose of that college is to do magic that affects technology and/or takes advantage of things provided by technology. A high-tension power line, or a gasoline engine turning a generator, or a car battery, is "technology"; a lightning bolt is not.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by malloyd

That would be a reasonable spell to have exist, but it's not how Draw Power or the like were originally designed and "balanced" to even the horribly limited extent that they are. Honestly it was never anything but idiotic to attempt to connect real work to magical energy in any sort of linear way, there are just too many orders of magnitude of range to the amount of work available, even in one setting never mind between them.

If you want a spell to do that in a game, forget the Tech college and write one yourself. Decide how much power you want it to provide, set the minimum size source that will deliver that, then *don't scale* - smaller source, no power at all, bigger source, same amount of power.

Originally Posted by starslayer

The spell was never intended to allow lone wizard or small covens using natural resources to achieve any useful amount of magical power.

It was/is intended to allow high tech wizards to use power cells to power spells (IE- when everyone is running around using energy weapons, glue cannons, and sonic stunners with effectively unlimited ammo, you need to give the wizard access to that unlimited ammo too or they become less useful than the guy with the bigger backpack).

It also had some application in BIG SPACE adventures with magic, because a coven a wizards on a spaceship could access enough power to do useful things on the scale of space interaction.

As well indicated by GURPS: Technomancer draw power was not intended to be useful even into TL 8 (/early 9)- they gave the technomancer universe direct atomic power->manna conversions via technology, and industrial enchanting spells.

Originally Posted by whswhs

That's because it's not the purpose of the spell. The spell is part of the Tech college. The purpose of that college is to do magic that affects technology and/or takes advantage of things provided by technology. A high-tension power line, or a gasoline engine turning a generator, or a car battery, is "technology"; a lightning bolt is not.

All this.
It wasn't meant to create Super Mages in LT settings but to give mages parity in High and UT settings.
The main ways to get lots of external energy are Mass and ceremonial magic or Ley Lines and Mana Basins/Springs.
I did submit an article for something else that would work here for Pyramid "Natural Magic" but the issue was too full so Steven said he might use it later. I've since added a refinement I hope to use as well.

[William]

Note that peak power for a lightning bolt is nothing like a second long. A typical bolt lasts 30 to 90 microseconds. Modeling it as ramping linearly up and down from 0, you get 250 FP. Still, a much larger-than-average bolt could power a Resurrection spell! If you could catch it...

There was an earlier thread on this here where I was interested enough to try statting up some ways to do it.

[scc]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That's because it's not the purpose of the spell. The spell is part of the Tech college. The purpose of that college is to do magic that affects technology and/or takes advantage of things provided by technology. A high-tension power line, or a gasoline engine turning a generator, or a car battery, is "technology"; a lightning bolt is not.

I'd say that any target for any of the * Fuel/TL spells would be a valid source, so that can of gasoline would be a valid target, not the engine

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by scc

I'd say that any target for any of the * Fuel/TL spells would be a valid source, so that can of gasoline would be a valid target, not the engine

Depends which spell you're using. Some spells work on energy stored in fuel; some on energy stored in batteries; and some on energy flowing through a generator, transmission line, or energy using device. But in principle, yes, and my list was intended to be suggestive and illustrative, not exhaustive.