[Aria]

Ok, so the spell design rules are here and I wanted to start a thread to recreate some old favorites from SR5 and possible add some new ones.  Preferably with an eye to some measure of game balance so a sane GM (is there such a thing?) doesn't throw them out instantly...

So, to start off I'll have a go at Powerblade (who doesn't love a lightsabre?)... I've based it on the stone fists spell they use as an example of the build system but replace 'stone' with 'metal' for +1DV and +1drain.  The glowing sword bit is fluff, it could just as easily be a magically created katana...most people would just carry an actual katana but still 

End result: Touch spell, Type P, Duration S, Drain 6 (ouch?!)
Raises 'unarmed combat' to 4P, 5P if agility is 5 or more (yes, not strength, it's a lightsabre) and net hits add +1AR

So is that grossly unbalanced?  The Agi might be a reach for some but the drain is quite high, same as Fireball!

Thoughts?  And let's see what everyone else can come up with 

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Here's my take on a couple of perennial Shadowrun favorites:

Urban Renewal, and Turn to Goo!

Urban Renewal (aka Summon Heat Penalties) causes destruction, so probably ought to be classified as a Combat spell.  Although IIRC back in the early editions it was Manipulation?  Whatever.  Damage=Combat spell, by my rationale. 
Ingredients: Area Effect (+1DV), which must included Ranged (+1DV)
Narrow Target (buildings and walls) (-1DV)
Wallop (+1DV) (because we want to do physical damage to walls, not stun them
Weaken barrier ratings (+XDV) (because, well, we want to actually KNOCK THOSE WALLS DOWN)

So, without the effect of softening barrier ratings, we're at 3DV for the spell.  Let's go nuts and make the demolitions work rather well and subtract 5 from affected barrier ratings!
End result:

Urban Renewal: Area, Ranged, Type P, Duration I, Drain 8 (lol)  This spell only affects walls and structures. Reduce affected barrier ratings by 5 before applying damage.


and:
Turn to Goo!  This is clearly a sustained manipulation.
Affect Living Things (obviously) +1DV
Petrification (being turned into goo is kind of like being petrified? doesn't make much of a difference, when you look at the petrified status rules) +1DV
Ranged (even though it's free for manipulation, this is clearly an offensive/hostile spell, so pricing it like combat here) +1DV

That adds up to 4 drain.  still not a whole lot for what's essentially "I win".  Probably have to score [BOD] net hits over and above the resistance in order to turn someone into goo.  or you can only sustain the spell for 10-BOD rounds, or something.  Yeah, I like that better.  That way being Turned to Goo isn't automatically death.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I'm not sure I could recreate 1/2 the existing spells with those rules.

[Aria]

I'm not sure I could recreate 1/2 the existing spells with those rules.

Got any particular favourites we could have a go at?!

[Shinobi Killfist]

The barrier spells spring to mind as I was looking at those last. Some spells line up perfectly, hey look here is a animate feature. If I wanted to increase a wall structure I think they had something directly of that, but create a wall of force out of tin air, didn't see anything. And honestly I flat out didn't understand the illusions and how those worked with people vs machines. And i saw veil, increase light/shadow, nausea but what if you are going for something like trid phantasm, mask spells. 

[Lormyr]

Narrow Target (buildings and walls) (-1DV

Can this ingredient be used for objects, being it states individuals? If so may need errata, but I also have a new personal favorite custom spell if applicable.

Grenades Are Dumb
+1 DV, Manipulation Spell
+1 DV, Animate (metal)
+1 DV, Animate (plastic)
+1 DV, Area of Affect
-1 DV, Narrow Target (grenades)
-, Ranged
Final DV 3
Roll Sorcery + Magic vs. object resistance for all grenades within the radius. If successful, the spell animates said grenades to either arm or pull their pin (as appropriate), and slam into the ground at their feet of the person who possesses them, causing them to detonate.

Edit: Come to think of it, it doesn't matter. The spell would be better off without narrow targets, take that extra 1 drain, and do this to grenades and missiles and rockets! Fuck your explosives, game!

[Aria]

With an OR of ~9 that is going to burn most runner teams (I'm thinking your average corpsec doesn't go around with too many grenades, too much risk of property damage)...as an 'I win' button it's pretty nasty... and what would net hits do?  Maybe only one grenade per net hit?  Even that's nasty!

[Lormyr]

By a strict reading it seems that net hits would increase the volume of objects affected, which I think would be a fine application. OR 9 should be pretty easy to reliably overcome with even an only moderately optimized casting pool.

Explosive grenades? Probably not frequently. Stun and gas grenades? I could see those being fairly common place.

Another fun variation would be manipulation/repel (metal and/or plastic)/narrow target (grenades/missiles/rockets). When thrown or fired at you, they would auto scatter away from you at some distance based upon hits when casting.

Overall I like the idea of custom spells, but in practice the rules appear exceptionally abusable, which ultimately means bad design. Yes GM discretion can prevent bad cases, but that doesn't cover the fact that the fundamental design is unbalanced.

[Aria]

Overall I like the idea of custom spells, but in practice the rules appear exceptionally abusable, which ultimately means bad design. Yes GM discretion can prevent bad cases, but that doesn't cover the fact that the fundamental design is unbalanced.

I guess that's why I was originally thinking of recreating spells that have some SR precedent... not that that precedent necessarily means the spells were ever balanced 

[MercilessMing]

Urban Renewal (aka Summon Heat Penalties) causes destruction, so probably ought to be classified as a Combat spell.  Although IIRC back in the early editions it was Manipulation?  Whatever.  Damage=Combat spell, by my rationale.
Ingredients: Area Effect (+1DV), which must included Ranged (+1DV)
Narrow Target (buildings and walls) (-1DV)
Wallop (+1DV) (because we want to do physical damage to walls, not stun them
Weaken barrier ratings (+XDV) (because, well, we want to actually KNOCK THOSE WALLS DOWN)

So, without the effect of softening barrier ratings, we're at 3DV for the spell.  Let's go nuts and make the demolitions work rather well and subtract 5 from affected barrier ratings!
End result:

Urban Renewal: Area, Ranged, Type P, Duration I, Drain 8 (lol)  This spell only affects walls and structures. Reduce affected barrier ratings by 5 before applying damage.

It makes sense... now how did Demolish (Object) somehow do the same thing with 6 Drain?

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

By a strict reading ...

I get where you're coming from.  I really, really do.  I'm sympathetic to it, even.  I love arguing about technical and syntanctic nuances, so how could I not be sympathetic to this?

But... these rules are a context where a "strict reading"/RAW just isn't relevant, because these rules are not meant to be taken literally or to cover every potential idea a player might have.  They're intentionally loosey-goosey and subject to interpretation.  Put another way: they provide a framework upon which a spell can be built. A framework is in of itself just a framework.

The rules are not intended to ensure that if you give 2 different people the same spell idea that they independently crunch that idea down to identical game stats.  (pardon the bolding, but this is super important!)

Overall I like the idea of custom spells, but in practice the rules appear exceptionally abusable, which ultimately means bad design. Yes GM discretion can prevent bad cases, but that doesn't cover the fact that the fundamental design is unbalanced.

This is where we really look at this differently.  Open-ended options of course allow for virtually anything.  That's the intended feature, not a bug!  The extreme openness in fact makes the designed spells impossible to abuse (well, in a home game anyway.  No idea how SRM is gonna handle this).  Every spell explicitly must be cooperatively designed by player and GM both.  Implicitly, this also means both must come to an agreement about the final form of the spell.  So long as the GM is approving (which is different than failing to veto), the spell can't be abusive, is it?  At best, the player and GM didn't think all the angles through and something comes up later... at which point you enter the art of GMing.  "How do you fix a mistake?"  No one correct answer, but there are options.  Let's segue into MercilessMing giving a potential example!

Urban Renewal (aka Summon Heat Penalties) causes destruction, so probably ought to be classified as a Combat spell.  Although IIRC back in the early editions it was Manipulation?  Whatever.  Damage=Combat spell, by my rationale.
Ingredients: Area Effect (+1DV), which must included Ranged (+1DV)
Narrow Target (buildings and walls) (-1DV)
Wallop (+1DV) (because we want to do physical damage to walls, not stun them
Weaken barrier ratings (+XDV) (because, well, we want to actually KNOCK THOSE WALLS DOWN)

So, without the effect of softening barrier ratings, we're at 3DV for the spell.  Let's go nuts and make the demolitions work rather well and subtract 5 from affected barrier ratings!
End result:

Urban Renewal: Area, Ranged, Type P, Duration I, Drain 8 (lol)  This spell only affects walls and structures. Reduce affected barrier ratings by 5 before applying damage.

It makes sense... now how did Demolish (Object) somehow do the same thing with 6 Drain?

Well, to start with, I completely forgot Demolish Walls/Barriers is already a thing.  So right out of the gates we have a spell that potentially can be forgotten about, since that wheel was already invented for this edition!   If I worked with Lormyr to make this spell for a hypothetical home game, and MercilessMing points out that the spell already basically exists under another name, we could just forget about the new spell (and probably refunding any in-game costs for development) or go back and re-jigger the spell to differentiate it more from Demolish Walls/Barriers.  Or, if everyone's happy with the slight difference as-is, then this hypothetical Urban Renewal spell can be an arcane (pun intended) distinction from Demolish Walls/Barriers.

To MercilessMing's question:

There are a couple of differences.  One is very minor: there's no option to narrow the target for edge in the custom Urban Renewal spell.  Of course that doesn't warrant MORE drain... but perhaps the angle where barrier rating is lowered DOES warrant more drain.  Because it flatly reduces barrier rating before dealing damage, so that makes it easier to hit 0 barrier rating and therefore cause holes/collapses.  That does warrant a bit more dain, I'd say?

[Lormyr]

But... these rules are a context where a "strict reading"/RAW just isn't relevant, because these rules are not meant to be taken literally or to cover every potential idea a player might have.  They're intentionally loosey-goosey and subject to interpretation.  Put another way: they provide a framework upon which a spell can be built. A framework is in of itself just a framework.

The rules are not intended to ensure that if you give 2 different people the same spell idea that they independently crunch that idea down to identical game stats.  (pardon the bolding, but this is super important!)

I get it. Since this is mostly a matter of personal taste, I have no real rebuttal other than I prefer my rules to be streamlined and succinct, so the not so rules rules are more frustrating to me than.

No idea how SRM is gonna handle this

I think we both know it's going to get flat banned. There is no other way to handle it without giving pages of house rules, which is not attractive.

For me personally, and you might disagree, I do not overly concern myself with how folks handle rules elements in their home games, because home games can be as balanced/unbalanced and GM discretion heavy as the table likes. I personally find the better measure for how well implemented and balanced rules are to be can they hold up to a living campaign as written. Heavily narrative game mechanics, for example say a quality that gave someone high social standing, I would be willing to give a pass too since they can be fun for a home game but simply won't work for living campaigns. I mostly relegate that pass to mechanics revolving around social status and followers though.

[Hobbes]

No idea how SRM is gonna handle this

I think we both know it's going to get flat banned. There is no other way to handle it without giving pages of house rules, which is not attractive.

For me personally, and you might disagree, I do not overly concern myself with how folks handle rules elements in their home games, because home games can be as balanced/unbalanced and GM discretion heavy as the table likes. I personally find the better measure for how well implemented and balanced rules are to be can they hold up to a living campaign as written. Heavily narrative game mechanics, for example say a quality that gave someone high social standing, I would be willing to give a pass too since they can be fun for a home game but simply won't work for living campaigns. I mostly relegate that pass to mechanics revolving around social status and followers though.

Eh, banned for players certainly, but not necessarily banned from Missions.  Gives Mission Writers a framework for unique spells that can be used by NPCs or handed out as a reward. 

Could be someone on the Mission team wanting to make (or re-make) a few favorites and adding them to the Mission FAQ. 

I could also see aspects of this being okay for a player use in a Missions game.  Change an existing spell in a specific way, essentially giving every existing spell a couple of variants that are okay'd for Missions.

But yeah, custom spell design is going to be mostly for home games.  Some things just aren't going to be appropriate for a living campaign. 

[Sir Ludwig]

Just things I have gotten from this and previous post:

SSDR doesn’t seem to be a SRM player so he aligns with flexibility. 

Lormyr plays more SRM.  He prefers strict rules. 

In my mind, that is why you two have different rules Philosophies. 

I tend to fall in the SSDR camp.  I will admit, the first thing I thought when I got to spell creation was “I can’t wait to see what Lormyr comes up with, to break it”.  No offense intended Lormyr.  Also, your grenade idea reminded me of a Magneto trick.

How would you all create Shapechange or (Critter) form?

Regards,
SL

[Shinobi Killfist]

Just things I have gotten from this and previous post:

SSDR doesn’t seem to be a SRM player so he aligns with flexibility. 

Lormyr plays more SRM.  He prefers strict rules. 

In my mind, that is why you two have different rules Philosophies. 

I tend to fall in the SSDR camp.  I will admit, the first thing I thought when I got to spell creation was “I can’t wait to see what Lormyr comes up with, to break it”.  No offense intended Lormyr.  Also, your grenade idea reminded me of a Magneto trick.

How would you all create Shapechange or (Critter) form?

Regards,
SL

I don't play missions. I don't like loose rules. I always know I can change things as a DM or make calls no matter how strict the rules are, that's just part of being a GM.  Requiring it for it to function is just tossing more work on my table. And honestly I find the loose rules a lot harder on me as a DM. 

These spell making rules are too loose for me, its making a series of weird calls saying x is like y sort of so we go with that. It is like I am working through metaphor. As a example look at the example for levitate I'm like WTF repel earth.

I'd have no idea how to do shape change, there is no transform option. Is it possible to get that from here, maybe but its all weird sort of decisions, like the levitate one above, like you'd be affects living things, then what?  There is nothing to get there, but they'd probably come up with some weird justification like petrifaction transforms the body, then shape material stone changes it into the shape you want instead of 1kg of material its 1 body per net hit to get it to work so 7DV. 1 base, 1 affects livings, 1 petrification, 1 shape, 3 stone. Does that make a lick of sense, no not really but neither did levitate, and I can't figure out how they made magic fingers, or barrier, or mask, or trid phantasm etc either.