Author Topic: Flight spell?  (Read 4372 times)

Offline Aohd

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Flight spell?
« on: October 31, 2010, 02:36:44 PM »
I am talking full on superman style flying around in my underpants flight. What is the best way to handle that game-wise?

Offline Papa Gruff

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Re: Flight spell?
« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2010, 03:02:09 PM »
Do you wan't to do it as a spell or as a power?
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Offline Tsunami

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Re: Flight spell?
« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2010, 03:22:14 PM »
I am talking full on superman style flying around in my underpants flight. What is the best way to handle that game-wise?
Wings with a Twist.
I'd say.

Offline Aohd

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Re: Flight spell?
« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2010, 03:36:06 PM »
Wings with a Twist.
I'd say.

Ah, sure enough, wings would be the place to start.

Offline MyNinjaH8sU

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Re: Flight spell?
« Reply #4 on: November 01, 2010, 12:44:02 AM »
I'd almost say it would be worth a -2 refresh though, since the downside to wings is that you actually have them, and in general you cannot hide them.

Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Flight spell?
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2010, 12:59:52 AM »
Human Guise costs nothing. There really isn't a downside to Wings, and it's probably worth more than one refresh. But it isn't worth houseruling.

Offline MyNinjaH8sU

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Re: Flight spell?
« Reply #6 on: November 01, 2010, 01:19:32 AM »
I actually had a player ask me what it would take to get that in my campaign just recently, and now that I have thought about it I would probably allow it, with about as much control as a large bird, so no hovering or flying backwards.

I also told him it would be appropriate for such a character to also take Marked By Power, to represent that he is more than Human. This would make sure people recognized him as such, and provide a little bit more of a bonus beside, while still letting him blend I to mortal society without and trouble.

Offline Aohd

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Re: Flight spell?
« Reply #7 on: November 01, 2010, 04:55:44 AM »
I think it is a rather neat focused practitioner concept. Big flashy and useful but ultimately the character is still human.

Offline MyNinjaH8sU

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Re: Flight spell?
« Reply #8 on: November 01, 2010, 05:12:56 AM »
Focuses Practitioner: Grav-o-mancer?

Offline zerogain

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Re: Flight spell?
« Reply #9 on: November 01, 2010, 05:36:26 AM »
One character in my game is a Warden specializing in air magic.  We hammered out that one of his enchanted items could confer the Wings power to him 3x/day, operating at his Lore skill for it's relevant ranking, simply saying that Wings was the ability conferred by the enchanted item and using all the enchanted item rules to determine usage restrictions and limitations.

Enchanted items can continue to function beyond their uses with the expenditure of mental stress, so it isn't meet for him to be flying all over the city, but it is very useful for short term uses such as immediately getting away from a foe or clearing obstacles or barriers rapidly.

Offline Ryan_Singer

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Re: Flight spell?
« Reply #10 on: November 01, 2010, 06:41:02 AM »
One character in my game is a Warden specializing in air magic.  We hammered out that one of his enchanted items could confer the Wings power to him 3x/day, operating at his Lore skill for it's relevant ranking, simply saying that Wings was the ability conferred by the enchanted item and using all the enchanted item rules to determine usage restrictions and limitations.

Enchanted items can continue to function beyond their uses with the expenditure of mental stress, so it isn't meet for him to be flying all over the city, but it is very useful for short term uses such as immediately getting away from a foe or clearing obstacles or barriers rapidly.

A basic but fallible guide is that 1 refresh = 2 shifts. So this magic item would need a lore of at least +2.

Offline Lanodantheon

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Re: Flight spell?
« Reply #11 on: November 01, 2010, 06:45:41 PM »
The book talks in the evocation section about movement evocations briefly in marginals. For a non-permanent flight, you would have to build it like any other Evocation and with the same limits. The main problem being having to contend with physics.

...And low-flying birds. 
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Offline Ophidimancer

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Re: Flight spell?
« Reply #12 on: November 01, 2010, 07:18:39 PM »
I am talking full on superman style flying around in my underpants flight. What is the best way to handle that game-wise?

Here are my suggestions in order from closest to what you want to furthest.

1)  Spend the Refresh to get the Wings Power permanently.
2)  Spend Fate Points to get the Wings Power temporarily, either as the result of story, or a Thaumaturgical self Transformation.
2)  Cast an Evocation Maneuver to grant yourself a relevant Aspect or Aspects to boost an Athletics roll.
3)  Houserule:  Cast an Evocation to replace a Move action with the spellcasting roll.

Offline Becq

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Re: Flight spell?
« Reply #13 on: November 01, 2010, 09:36:00 PM »
"While it’s theoretically possible to create a
spell which would allow one to fly, the ability
to fly (whether on a broomstick, a carpet, or
some other conveyance) does not come with
an instruction manual, and thus does not come
with the expertise to control the ability once it’s
available. Most wizards avoid trying, and those
who do usually quickly discover what the human
body was not meant to do." (YS283)

As with any spell, you first have to come up with a way to describe the effect your trying to get.  Are you using wind to 'blow' you upward, like Storm?  This may seem like a great idea until you consider that a wind strong enough to lift an adult into the air is not going to be gentle about it.  Imagine sticking your head out the window of an jet while in flight.  (But only imagine it, please, don't actually try it!)  Or perhaps you could use fire to give yourself a booster rocket effect, like Ironman?  Even if you assume that a human capable of such fine control of three seperate thrusts (intensity and directional vector for each), you still hit the problem that you're probably talking about three spells working concurrently to emulate it.

Also, what happens when the spell runs out?  Evocations don't last very long, and if you're 100 feet up and moving fast when your booster spell dies, you're likely to follow suit shortly.  Well, why not use Thaumaturgy?  Well, Thaumaturgy is designed to create strong, steady flows of magic, which would not respond at all well to the continuous stream of fine corrections necessary to controlling flight.

All in all, the most workable solution seems to be the use of Transformation to grant actual wings.  You can get away with Thaumaturgy, because you're really using the magic to give you the wings and the strength to use them -- which stays constant for the spell duration.  Even so, though, you have to learn what birds get from instinct built over millenia.  And a mistake -- perhaps a bone thinned out a bit too much in order to reduce weight, or a muscle not quite strong enough to withstand the strain of flight -- could be very, very constly.  And humans should probably begin the learning curve with Flight skill at zero.  The trick is to survive training that skill up enough to be a competant flier.

That said, it's really a question of how your group wants to handle it.  You could just say that the above methods work fine, and that part of the magic smooths out the control issues somehow.  You know, cuz it's magic, right?  Up to you.  If you do it this way, then I'd imagine you could stat it as an a spell to allow Athletics to accomplish the impossible ... specifically, to allow you to travel without a surface.  So a 6-shift Evocation would allow you to fly with the same speed as you'd run with an Athletics skill of 6 (but without having to deal with ground obstacles).  For one exchange, though -- you'd likely want to allocate a few shifts for duration.  Or you could use Thaumaturgy to accomplish the same, making it easier to get a longer duration and/or higher speeds.

Offline ralexs1991

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Re: Flight spell?
« Reply #14 on: November 02, 2010, 03:08:22 PM »
also think about what flying at high altitudes at high speeds would do to your skin and extremeties anyone who's ever been high up enough you know how cold it can get no imagine that with a wind factor... anyone want a wizard-cicle
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