Anti-Gravity spell concept.. Would this be how it would work?

[Ophidimancer]

Huh? I was assuming that you use the Spell to give you the Aspect, then use a normal Athletics roll (on which you Tag said Aspect) to actually jump. You only need the second part of that if you aren't doing it that way.

Yeah, that was my first suggestion.

[Alatain]

I know that this is not a factor and that science and physics hold a much lesser sway on the world. However, If you were to nullify gravity for an object, I believe it would technically shoot off the planet at a line tangential to the earth at a speed near that of the rotation of the earth...

Sorry for the moment of nerd. I return you to your regularly scheduled magic.

[JesterOC]

Thats if I nullify inertia, nullifying gravity just make the item buoyant much like being on the moon (but instead of little gravity, no gravity).
 

[luminos]

no, even with inertia, you still get flung off the earth.  You are moving forward, but don't have anything to keep you in a circular path.  If you lost inertia, you'd stay on the earth, it would just move beneath you.

[JesterOC]

By nullifying gravity I meant counteracting earth's gravitational pull, not the sun's. Much like adjusting the weights on a scuba diver to make him buoyant. By loosing inertia I meant imagine an objected being locked into it's current location in space with no inertia . The earth will either smack into you or fly away from you at about 66k miles an hour. Which is not even taking into consideration the speed the solar system is traveling.  Being immune to all forms of gravity would eventually led an object to fly away from the earth, but more like a slow balloon rather being flung. Inertia and the constant friction of air which is still being effected by gravity will keep the object circling the sun for a while.



JesterOC

[JesterOC]

Aside from this tangent that I got caught up in, anyone have a critique of my second to the last post from page one?

JesterOC

[CMEast]

I think this is where the mechanics of aspects overlap with the narrative.  If the building is one story high, it should have a border of about +3. If the PC has an athletics of + 1, then even with the +2 from  tagging the aspect there is only a 50% chance to onto the roof. (Ok less than 50% but higher than I think would be likely)

However from a narrative point of view, it is hard to imagine someone with no gravity holding him down could not make it up to the top of the building. The lack of gravity is a game changer and should trump the border difficulty because walls are only difficult to cross because of gravity.

I personally think aspects that nullify the inherent rules of the difficulty should be not be rolled for. On the other hand a completely different challenge could enter the picture. For instance if it was really windy, the PC would have to struggle to not get blown downwind.

JesterOC

Well using athletics would work as you've stated, then it's just a case of overcome the border value.

From a narrative point of view, you're right that having no gravity would allow you to get up there easily (as an automatic declaration or similar), however from a game balance point of view an aspect normally only applies a +2 to a roll. If the aspect only adds +2 to your athletics then either null gravity only lasts a second or two, or it is lower gravity instead of null gravity.

In the same way, you could create an earth aspect to make you hit harder but if it only adds +2 then it's 'Fists of Rock' rather than 'Fists of Mountains' or 'Meteorite Punches' or something, no matter how much you like the image.

It actually states in Your Story that a manoeuvre is generally 3 shifts, but it might be more depending on the value of the resisting skill. In this case the resistance is the border value and so the manoeuvre will cost more for an automatic success, or if the building was much taller (higher border value) or if there was some part of the scene that would increase resistance like high winds or bad weather.

[Tsunami]

Basically what you want to do is described in "Transportation and Worldwalking" in YS:282

Using the OP example:
Moving to the roof of that building requires you to beat a certain Border-Value.
Simply summon up enough shifts to overcome that border, control the spell, and voilą.
(Substituting the spell for the required athletics check for movement)

How said spell is described is now up to you. Teleportation, Low Gravity, A pillar of earth lifting you up, A Wind-Vortex to fly up... Super Speed to run off, get a ladder and climb it... (I can hear Murphy telling me to stop with the looney toons...)

[JesterOC]

Tsunami I'll read that section today (there is so much to read)

CMEast: you can either invoke an aspect or invoke for effect.invoking for effect is like a declaration you can just say what you want to be true as long as the group agrees. doing so in a conflict is a bit trickier than otherwise, but it still can be used.take a look at the loup garou blinding spell in the examples, all the spell does its put the aspect blinded on the target.yet it knocked out the beast until sunrise. The only way to do that in game terms is with invoking for effect. +2 is only one thing an aspect can do.

Jesteroc

[CMEast]

Totally true JesterOC, but the declaration has to be reasonable. You could create a 3 shift aspect called 'strong as a bull' and use it to help pick up a car, you could in theory create an aspect called 'godlike strength' and use it to launch that car in to the sun but it's going to cost a lot more shifts.

With gravity you are lifting yourself, lighter than a car and perfectly reasonable. You choose the flavour for it so you can reverse gravity and be launched skywards, you can negate gravity and gently push yourself away from the floor or you can call it low-G and just bounce to where you need to go. However there is a huge difference in shifts between using magic to jump over a 6' fence, jumping on to a rooftop, leaping over a skyscraper or launching yourself in to orbit.

Now obviously jumping on to the rooftop of a small building is on the smaller scale of things but even so, it's not a one shift spell. Basing the power of the spell on the border level seems like an appropriate thing to do, but perhaps a different difficulty scale is required. I was using the concept of +2 is an analogy for the strength of a 3 shift manoeuvre, I assume putting more power in would provide a larger bonus though it's not in the rules as such. A different model, as Tsunami suggests, is needed.

[JesterOC]

Perhaps I have a solution that will work.

First I read "Transportation and Worldwalking" in YS:282 and while not providing any concrete numbers for flying (or floating) it does mention that just because you can fly does not mean that you are skilled at it, which implies that a secondary skill may be needed to determine how effective you fly (of float). This is good because this matches my original idea of having the spell be a simple negate the earth's gravity on a man sized object which I think should still be a shift of three.

Next is the problem of what game effect should it have, if we where not in a conflict, I think we should be able to use invoke for effect and say "He jumps to the top of the building". In a conflict I think that is too broad and powerful.

In a conflict I propose that the aspect "Neutral buoyancy" does these things.
1) It can be invoked for a plus 2 (or re-roll) on your athletics skill to jump to the top of the building
2) Jumping to the top of the building can be considered an challenge (YS 324) as described as follows.
    a) Base Difficulty of a jump is Mediocre (+0)
    b) Each roll takes an exchange
    c) The total number of shifts equals the border value of the zone
3) When the duration runs out, the challenge ends

This simulates the PC being able to jump and then pull his way up the building over time. So a very athletic character can leap to the top fairly quickly and easily, but an nonathletic fellow can also get to the top, but it will just take him longer.

[CMEast]

That seems to work Plus it allows you to use the same aspect for really high buildings or for mountain climbing. If the scene was a particularly long one and you could use the climbing rules and instead of rolling endurance you could roll conviction, if you fail a conviction roll the aspect runs out of juice and you're now clinging to the side of a building