[Magic] So Lasers Can Hurt Ghosts

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by scc

Mainly this was about Manaplasms and several spells, including Missile Spells, Jet Spells and the like, chiefly things like Expolsive Fireball, my view is that the Manaplasms Immunity to Magic trait wouldn't work against such spells.

Originally Posted by Kromm

A manaplasm is a monster found in Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2. It has a trait called Immunity to Magic.

Immunity to Magic is a top-level Immunity that includes Immunity to Direct Magic (magical effects cast on or triggered by the subject, whether or not they're resistible, and whether they originate from spells, innate magical abilities, magic items, or something else), Immunity to Ambient Magic (persistent magical effects cast on or inherent to the environment, which affect the subject upon encountering them – again, regardless of specific origins), and Immunity to Magically Conjured Effects (beams, energy fields, flames, gas, projectiles, etc. created out of nothing using magic, even if the conjured matter or energy isn't itself magical). It is a dramatic filter that asks: "Is magic necessary to have this noxious effect?" And yes, it assumes that magical conjurations have a "memory" of their origins.

Haven't picked up DFM2 yet.

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.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

So, no, in RAW, Lasers cannot 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.

[scc]

Originally Posted by Kromm

The idea is to distinguish ordinary burning fuel ignited by Fire spells, but that could burn anyway, from fuel-less fires that burn only because of Fire spells; existing rocks dislodged by Earth spells, but that could fall anyway, from stony projectiles that exist only because of Earth spells; natural sunlight focused using Light and Darkness spells, but that could cause sunburn anyway, from artificial sunlight conjured by Light and Darkness spells; and so on. This is why jet and Missile spells count: They are matter or energy created from nothing by magic. Were magic not possible, neither would be the spells. It's irrelevant to the discussion whether the stuff flying through the air is magical.

All of this – especially "it assumes that magical conjurations have a memory of their origins" and "it's irrelevant whether the stuff flying through the air is magical" – appears to cause difficulties for some. However, I think that most gamers grasp that the idea here is that casters cannot affect the creature simply by casting a spell. They have to get creative: collapse the ceiling, ignite a flammable gas, or otherwise use their magic to trigger a damaging effect that could as easily be triggered by mundane means.

This is useful information that probably should have been put into one of the books, but there's something about Missile Spells or something that suggests that they aren't magical conjurations, at least when they hit, I just can't remember what it is.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by scc

This is useful information that probably should have been put into one of the books, but there's something about Missile Spells or something that suggests that they aren't magical conjurations, at least when they hit, I just can't remember what it is.

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.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

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 flaming gas. That doesn't mean there is no magic in them.

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.

[scc]

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.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by malloyd

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.

permanently enchanted items are another thing: although temporarily de-activated in No Mana areas they resume their previous enchantments once brought out of them AFAIK

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?

[Abrasax]

Originally Posted by weby

In one of my games a flashbang was used against a ghost and I ruled that because the ghost had vision and hearing it could be affected by the effects, but that it was basically partly shielded from it so the effect was like they had had protected hearing and vision.

This causes problems for my brain because: if they can be affected by physical light then do they have physical eyes? Because otherwise how could the objects interact? There either has to be something 'material' about the spiritual or the spiritual simply cannot interact with the material. This sort of ontological stuff has always bothered me in fantasy (and elsewhere), call it 'material' or 'real' or whatever but if an object can interact with another object there must be some mechanical exchange of energy to make that possible. Call energy 'Spiritual Fire' or whatever you want, but I have a hard time making any kind of sense of these sorts of arguments. If a ghost can see via light then a flashbang could affect him, but that would also imply he has actual EYES of some sort; but if a ghost just sees by magic it can't affect him but his 'seeing' must actually be para-radar.

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.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Abrasax

This causes problems for my brain because: if they can be affected by physical light then do they have physical eyes?

You can still see light if you take Injury Tolerance: No Eyes.

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.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Abrasax

This causes problems for my brain because: if they can be affected by physical light then do they have physical eyes?.

An assumption that does not follow. The ability to sense light can be as supernatural as anything else about a ghost.