If anyone here has read the Wheel of Time series (or not), there is a Weave (a spell) in that series called Balefire, which is one of my personal favorite combat spells ever.
Basically, you fire a bolt of purple light from your fingertip. A person touched by it (or the object it hits, but it burns like a laser) is destroyed, but not just destroyed. Retroactively destroyed. "Burned out of the Pattern before the moment of his own destruction."
How do we MultiVerser this?
It's a Neutral Divine spell, no words, single-action casting (it's a combat spell), that requires that you have seized the One Power (their source of magic) - which itself assumes you can Channel - and requires a successful... well, in d20 it's a ranged touch attack. I guess it would be an Aim Ray Spell skill? It allows no save to resist, and destroys the victim progressively further back in time depending upon how powerful the channeler is (consequently undoing everything they would have done in those minutes, had they existed).
Well, as it's a time manipulative, we're dealing with at least a M14@ Alter Reality, possibly a M15@ Do Anything (Specifically This Thing). I don't have the book on me, so that's as specific as I can get on bias.
As far as the touch attack goes, that's easy and we do it all the time. We just say it's "targeted," which means I get to add my RSV and my target gets to subtract his TV and we build it all in to the success roll, just as if I were shooting a gun.
Unfortunately, I doubt that this spell meshes well with Multiverser's take on time travel. Since if the target does not exist at the time of the casting I have no motivation to cast the spell, we get an infinity loop every time. This is the same reason going back in time to kill Adolf Hitler rarely works.
So, I don't think we can model a skill that works as described. What we can do is model a skill that gets the results we see in the Wheel of Time books which everyone happens to think works as described. Probably it wipes the target from existence and "undoes" the effects of the target's recent actions (whether or not the caster was aware of them), without actually messing with Time Proper.
The negative sit-mods, of course, will be massive. I'll leave them as an exercise for someone else.
Osevens, it's taken me quite a few years to get a handle on the Multiverser concept of time travel. MJ's theory is very complicated, and dangerous to deal with.
If you manipulate time with the intention of undoing an event in the past, you create a time paradox called an infinity loop. We'll use Scott's example of killing Hitler. You go back in time and kill Hitler when he is 10 years old. So that means that you will never read about Hitler in the history books, because he will never come to power. If you never know that he was going to come to power, you won't know that you were going to go back to kill him. If you don't go back to kill him, then he does come to power. So you go back to kill him, so you don't, so you do, so you don't, so you do, so you don't, so you do. Free advice, time travel is not something you want to even come close to in this game.
To use your spell, you cast it on Scott and wipe out his entire existence. So that means that Scott will never be there for you to cast the spell. If he isn't there for you to cast the spell, then you won't cast it. If you don't cast it, then Scott will be there for you to cast it. So you cast it, so he isn't there, so he is, so he isn't, so he is, so he isn't, so he is, so he isn't. Off into infinity. DO NOT mess with time travel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh yeah, and Scott, don't worry, I wouldn't want to wipe out your entire existence. You were just the only example that came to mind.
I'm of the opinion, a single stupid thing in a system ruins the system. Having a spell that erases someone from existing, and from ever have existing, makes me think so little of a system, I wouldn't give it a try. It could be a kick ass system in all other ways, but having a mechanic like that in a game is enough to not even consider it next time I see it at Ubercon.
Adam
Jhiaxus - It's not just from the game, it's in the novels, too, and it DOES mess with reality like that. It seems the caster himself is immune to paradox: the person who cast it remembers both versions of the last few minutes.
Rand al'Thor, the main character, uses Balefire to destroy one of the bad guys. He remembers that bad guy horribly slaughtering one of his friends... and he remembers his friend being fine all along. And now his friend is fine, because that bad guy wasn't there to kill him. It seems like part of the spell insulates the caster from paradox.
Also, it doesn't erase someone from ever having existed, it only erases him from having existed, say, five minutes ago. You remember him dissolving into vapor as if disintegrated, and only the caster remembers WHY he disintegrated him. To be fair, this spell is forbidden in WoT. Casting it gets you hunted down, because at one point they went rampant with it, not realizing exactly how it worked, and the escalating ripples through time threatened to unmake reality because they kept re-weaving the Pattern erasing entire cities with it.
Even then Osevens, the infinity loop would be 5 minutes long. He exists, he doesn't, he exists, he doesn't. Even if you only erased his history for 2 seconds, it would still be an infinity loop.
I take that back. It wouldn't automatically be an infinity loop by erasing his history for 2 seconds. However, if you destroyed your reason for casting the spell, THEN it would be an infinity loop. Erasing his existence for 2 seconds might do that. I'm not 100% certain. MJ could explain it better.
Now that I think about it, yes, erasing their history for 2 seconds would create an infinity loop. If you erase their history for 2 seconds, then they won't be there for you to cast the spell. If you don't cast the spell, they will be there, so they won't so they will so they won't so they will. That spell is a bad idea all around.
The answer to this is two points.
1. In Multiverser generally, time travel and changes creates infinity loops, but in this specific universe it does not.
Otherwise, all those time travel stories about changing the past without causing infinity loops could not be played in Multiverser, and since in Multiverser every story is true somewhere....
Note: I have a thirteen-sided Time War world. In that universe, people are a probability wave that stretches across alternate realities and Current Reality is only one point on that probability wave. Ed's NPC in Worldwalker is one of these 'Humans'. She has far more innate probability energy to her than you or me.
2. Jhiaxus...its trying to mimic the story. Multiverser to repeat makes every story possible....to add...this includes the stupid stories. You can't just say "Multiverser allows one to simulate all but the really dumb stories."
Not that WoT is that bad. Its okay, if not that great either, but there are plenty of really bad stories.
Well, as i understand it, balefire works by seriously screwing up the fabric of time, to the point where no amount of balefire can bring back a balefired person. That is because it actually exists outside of time, balefire actually is not itself an event that happens. When you balefire someone, they are gone even if you obliterated them back to before you met them, and even remain gone if you get balefired back to a point before that. Also, even when you obliterate a person back before you went to where you were to kill them, you stay there. That, quite possibly, is inflicting all sorts of crazy things like randomly appearing ghosts. Too much balefire, and reality ceases to exist. Therefore, after year 1 of the big war, it was universally banned by both sides.
Minor semantic note: it's actually extremely white and of a size defined by it's power. the repeated use of purple when refering to it is talking about the afterimage.
JTM - You're correct on all points, regarding it being white with a purple afterimage and on it being banned due to sending ripples through time. The only thing I might contest you on is whether or not balefiring someone who balefired someone else brings back your victim's victim. I'm pretty sure "burned out of the pattern" means "gone with no hope of recovery." Remember that the Forsaken who got balefired, even the Dark One himself wasn't able to bring back. But as I said, weaving it specifically does NOT paradox the channeler, since we see it repeatedly in the books and it doesn't happen that way.
And, Adam, yeah, there are some truly inconceivably awful stories out there, and some inconceivably awful games, too. Wheel of Time is neither. The books started out amazing and got progressively more Byzantine as the series went on, mostly because Robert Jordan was (gods rest him) pretty awful at making decisions, so everything that could have been going on, more or less was, until reading the later books was like trying to nibble one noodle out of a bowl of pasta.
My turn.
Even if we remove the infinity loop problem, there is still this incredibly complicated problem with this spell.
Let's say that the spell takes one minute to cast, and that our user at least on this occasion can erase a person ten minutes in the past. That means anything the victim did over the past ten minutes he never did.
But I'm assuming that our caster didn't just pop up and decide the zap this guy out of existence. This is part of an ongoing battle, and during that ongoing battle the zapped guy has been fighting with someone--maybe the caster, maybe some person the caster is trying to bring back, maybe other combatants on the caster's side, maybe even mutual enemies in a three-sided battle. That's nine combat minutes before the caster began casting the spell, plus one during which the caster was performing his ritual, during which the zapped guy is interacting with other combatants.
Then he's not, and that means that those with whom he was interacting are now doing something else, interacting with other combatants. Combat has to be replayed without the involvement of the zapped guy, to the degree that it would be altered. This could be significant, if our zapped guy has been using long range artillery or the equivalent, because even if he didn't kill or injure anyone at range, he probably caused them to take different paths to avoid his attacks. But there's really not any way around this.
Now, for the spell itself, this is what I see.
- As Scott observed, it's an Alter Reality Achieve Temporal Effects. He's forgiven for not knowing that that's a 15@10 skill (14@s are physical creation ex nihilo). It's going to change the present by changing the past.
- We need to avoid the infinity loop, and the way to do that is to make it so that the caster will cast the spell at the right time and place, even though his reason for doing so has been changed. That means we have to give him an alternative reason to do the same thing. I think it's not that hard, and it also gets the "double memory" thing you've noted about the spell. I throw in as part of the spell (-10 penalty for first additional spell) a 7@10 Future Information spell. Now my clock winds back 10 minutes, my zapped guy vanishes, but my caster is now living through the ten minutes he altered, as if two realities were present: he perceives what is happening in the altered timeline, but at the same time his very vivid memories of what he did in the original timeline are fed to his mind in real time. Thus he knows where he was standing minute by minute, when he decided to cast the spell, where he was standing when he cast it, and where his target was when he used it. I would also (at another -5) include a M10@7 suggestion (or maybe 10@9 enslavement, if I'm really worried about it) to induce the caster to feel the vital importance of casting that spell at that place at that moment. Thus in both the original and the altered timeline he casts the desired spell at the specified point in spacetime. Of course, the target is not actually there in the second timeline; but since this is a temporal effects spell, and particularly since it is magic, it is not impossible that casting the spell in the same place will have the effect of doing what it would have done had the target been there.
- I probably wouldn't charge for the special effects (create light is a 9@1 skill, but it's not at all uncommon for skills above that to create light as a side effect).
- I might toss in some sort of protection (probably a 10@1 non-aggression, preventing anyone the caster does not attack from attacking him, so that he can go through the motions necessary to be in the right place at the right time).
Did I miss anything?
--M. J. Young
Nope. Sounds good to me.
I have a slight problem with the caster having to cast the spell on the spot where his now non-existent target would have been in the second iteration, but that's not THAT bad a thing. Mostly the spell as I envisioned it affects the victim, and follows him backwards through time as a reaction thereafter independent of the caster (come to think of it, balefire is sounding more and more like a tachyon weapon...), but as I said this is a small difference. I would be content with that as-is.
So this gives the would-be caster a total of... something like -165% penalty to overcome when trying to cast it?
Come to think of it, this has to count as an Anarch spell - I can't imagine forcibly burning someone out of the fabric of time being anything BUT a slap in the face to the Creator's intended plan. So that may or may not matter...
I have a slight problem with the caster having to cast the spell on the spot where his now non-existent target would have been in the second iteration, but that's not THAT bad a thing.
I suppose, though, the question is this: when the caster uses the spell, erasing the existence of the victim and so altering the past ten minutes of history, what does he remember himself doing during that time?
Obviously, it would be unfair of me as referee to tell you as player character what it was you did instead of what you actually did, and thus we have to play it through so that you can decide what you would do. However, I would wager that in the book, at least, the caster was never really specific about what it is that he remembers himself doing for that altered ten minutes. Thus there's no really solid argument to say he did not do what he did in the original ten minutes, except that he would not have done whatever it is that he did interacting with the person who he removed from the universe. I could have said that the caster is locked into repeating his actions exactly, and hope that it doesn't mean anyone gets hit by "friendly fire" because they're standing where the opponent was (or in the path) now that he's not there. What matters, though, for the sake of preserving time, is that there is a cause at the end point for what happens at the start point, and that means that the caster has to cast either the same spell or one confirming it. However, based on simple rules of cause, if the caster has not done anything significantly different in that ten minutes, then all the "chance" factors will come to the same total, and it isn't just that he has the same chance of success, but as if he had the same roll. Thus I wouldn't roll again for doing the same spell at the same time under the same conditions, and unless something really drastic changes in that ten minutes, I would conclude that the conditions are the same.
What sort of concerns me is the alternative, which is that having cast the spell against one opponent I can then pick another. That is, at 12:10 I cast the balefire spell against Captain Picard, and we change the history of the past ten minutes as Captain Picard vanishes at noon and Commander Riker takes over; then at 12:10 I target Commander Riker, and now at noon both Captain Picard and Commander Riker vanish, and Commander Data takes over. Give me ten minutes, and at 12:10 I hit Commander Data, and now at noon the three top ranking officers vanish. Maybe Lieutenant Worf takes over, but I can hit him at 12:10, and if we keep it up, I can take out the entire army, one person at a time, within ten minutes. Nor do I get wounded or tired nor even older, because every time I cast it, it effectively takes me back ten minutes.
Thus requiring the caster to repeat his action at the right time (and providing him with the knowledge to do so) preserves time against the possibility of an infinity loop and prevents the caster from duplicating his own action multiple times.
Well, I haven't calculated it. Remember, though, that the penalty for bias only applies when you are learning a spell (or trying to create a magic device that performs the spell). It's going to be the usual balancing of what the caster says, does, and uses against the power of the skill (effectively obliterative, retroactively)--cost versus outcome. I would think that the biggest issue would be the balance of casting time--whether I think that the time you are investing in getting the result is appropriate for the result you are getting.So this gives the would-be caster a total of... something like -165% penalty to overcome when trying to cast it?
Although I agree that it's unlikely that this would be an alliance spell, or even a neutral spell, I can see it as an arcane spell--not holy magic at all. I can also see at least the possibility that it might be used by alliance characters against what we might for lack of a better term call anarch "fiends"--vampires, corporeal temporal demons, other undead, creatures deemed irredeemable by nature. I would probably assess a penalty against it as anarch holy magic for that very reason, even when so used (because it theoretically could be used against an enemy that was not irredeemable), but I would never say that God would not do something without contextualizing it. God would certainly object to using such a spell against sentient mortal beings capable of repentance, but whether He would also object to using the same spell against beings incapable of repentance is a much more difficult question.Come to think of it, this has to count as an Anarch spell - I can't imagine forcibly burning someone out of the fabric of time being anything BUT a slap in the face to the Creator's intended plan. So that may or may not matter...
And as to arcane spells, no one controls what you can do that way. If you also use holy magic, the questionable use of such spells might create negative sit-mods against your holy magic, but that does not prevent you from using the arcane stuff.
--M. J. Young
A day or three ago, I finished Timeshadow Rider by Ann Maxwell. In it, the female heroine can heal people by travelling along their aura into the past, and changing effects.
She could strengthen the lifeflow, and that beats off the virus the person to be healed caught, or she can just make it so the damage never occurred.
This is a book for those who like highly emotional, superpowerful beings in a romance who later scale up to being megapowerful. At one point, the guy and the girl are absorbing their past lives (and learning everything those lives learned....thousands of them) and they run the risk of absorbing all the lives and past lives of everyone in Human Space thus making it so that the Fourth Evolution of Human Space aka The Joining never existed.
It had a lot of neat ideas.