Technomancy

[Ghostfreak]

Looking for ideas on how one would be able to do a technomancer (combinig magic and technology to great effect.) Could someone point in the right direction or maybe even offer ideas of how to accomplish this?  Many thanks in advance!

[khadgar4606]

depend on how you want to handle . If you want shadowrun  style then few key aspects solves the problem. on the other hand this is uncharted teretory so you gonna need to treat with caution.

[wardenferry419]

Aint there a GURPS manual that involved technomancy? Possible ideas if so.

[Quantus]

Ive seen a number of options spitt-balled over the years.  There are a few branching ways to deal with it, the obvious first issue being the Murphyonic effect of Magic. 

You can make them so weak it's not really an issue, but with such heightened senses they can actually detect and maybe even decode electromagnetic radio signals, etc. 

Another way around that to me is to pick an technological elemental specialty, Lightning or Electromagnetism being the go-to's.  Then your character can claim to be immune to that particular subset of Murphionic disruption; so electronics would work around you but guns or cars might still go wonky (non-electronic technologies).  Then you can just build out a technological manipulation power set as you desire. 

Another option is to have a non-mortal entity acting as a magical interface.   A Spirit of Intellect that lives in a desktop and likes to roam the Internet.  An ancient Dreaming Spirit that somehow linked the PC's mind to the telecommunications networks of the world, accdentally spilling state secrets in there.  A Gremlin familiar that loves to actually Rebuild technology for mischievous purposes and see's Hexes as inexcusably Crude. 

[khadgar4606]

how about we say f it to old variants and make technomancy part and parcel of its own magic so miss sombra hackergal can be both wizard of white council and member of idiot watch.
what i am saying is lets think it as like spirit in the current system thus practitioner of technomancy has its own rules to govern its own discipline like

[whitelaughter]

okay, it's canon that hexing is mostly post WWII stuff.

perhaps that's because during WWII, wizards were constantly taking down tech, and so anything from that era has been 'hardened' to resist hexing? Whereas more modern stuff hasn't been.

Consider that if you were in Europe during the war, the temptation to take down an enemy bomber - and to know that even if you got into trouble, you could claim that it was an accident - would have been constant. And not just of the enemy; wizards would have had the contacts to work out that bombing cities was counterproductive, so blowing the engine on one of your own sides bombers is saving the lives of the crew and the lives of the enemy civilians.
That also fits with what we know of tech during the war (remembering one early raid where of 19 bombers, 17 had to turn back with engine trouble and the remaining 2 got lost, found a target by accident that they then missed).

Uboats, mines, tanks, mtbs: all would be constantly being fried. And so hardened.

So how about a technomancer whose job during the war had been to improve the machines so they couldn't be hexed? Lots of iron, running liquid (why shouldn't the coolant systems in engines also count as running water for spell purposes?), thresholds and so forth.

[Quantus]

okay, it's canon that hexing is mostly post WWII stuff.

The cannon on that is a lot more complex than just a timeline cut-off.  For example it has a lot to do with how much the practitioners aura is entirely covering the object, which is part of why guns and cell phones can survive less than Cars.  See below for the best WOJ on the subject.

 (Also, just saying this is the novel cannon, GhostFreaks game can of course bend the setting as much as it wants to be fun)

The 'Harry screws up guns' thing hasn't been seen for several novels now, and I sincerely hope it's something JB has decided to let go to dust.  First away, if Harry's disruption thing is so bad that it can mess up simple chemistry and even simpler mechanical operations, then howinblazes does his car ever work?  Orders of magnitude more complex, mechanically, chemically, and electrically speaking...

On the other hand, using a GUN in earnest tends to be a tad more emotionally (and therefore magically) engaging than your average drive in a car.  Proximity has a lot to do with it, too.  Harry's actually TOUCHING the gun, generally in his right hand (the hand that projects magical energy) to boot.  In fact, the gun is small enough that it's actually going to be encompassed by his bioelectric field (a very mild, but totally individual field of electromagnetic energy that the human body produces).

The car is a much larger (relative) object that is (relatively) farther away, even when Harry is driving under stress--and even so, the Beetle (and other cars) have broken down on-stage more often than guns have actually jammed on-stage.

And there are other factors involved of which Harry is not entirely aware.  Alas, that the viewpoint character is non-omniscient.

The rules aren't changing.  The proper circumstances just haven't all aligned the way they have in the other instances of guns glitching.

Jim

[Sanctaphrax]

The main thing is just to have your GM not compel you to hex technology. Since Compels are self-compensating, that's a non-issue balance-wise. Once you've got that, you can just use tech-y aesthetics for normal magic.

Anyway, here's some previous stuff on the same topic:

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,18301.0.html
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,27718.0.html
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,28953.0.html

SUPER-SCIENCE! [-4]
Description: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic; any sufficiently defined magic is indistinguishable from technology. You're able to invent and build fantastic devices that are only dreamed about in science-fiction to create effects that blur the line between science and magic.
Sponsor: Super-Science! is sponsored by Science! itself. Science! is a semi-aware entity formed out of the scientific method and the collected knowledge of the human race.
Agenda: Science! desires to grow through the continued collective accumulation of knowledge and through the propagation of the scientific world-view. Beware, for the cold logic of Science can be used to justify any action...the same inspirations that created radiotherapy for curing cancer, first created nuclear bombs.
Evocation: Super-Science! evocations consist largely of the activation of supernatural weapons. As a result, they tend to be similar to exaggerated versions of real-life weaponry. Examples of Super-Science! evocations include homing missiles, laser blades, acidic bullets, and the like.
Thaumaturgy: Super-Science! rituals work through building machines and solving equations. If a ritual could conceivably be completed by those means, it may be cast with Super-Science!.
Evothaum: Super-Science does not grant the ability to use Thaumaturgy with the speed and methods of Evocation.
Extra Benefits: Super-Science! does not use the usual set of spellcasting skills. Resources replaces Conviction, Craftsmanship replaces Discipline and Scholarship replaces Lore for the purposes of spellcasting with Super-Science!. In addition, a character with Super-Science receives one free specialization in either Crafting power or Crafting frequency. Finally, a character with Super-Science! never accidentally hexes anything.
Drawbacks: Super-Science! evocations may not be cast without foci. Furthermore, Super-Science! foci and enchanted items are vulnerable to hexing. The difficulty is equal to Scholarship + twice the number of Enchanted Item slots invested in the item.

[Ghostfreak]

Much appreciated everyone! Such awesome ideas!

[wardenferry419]

What if someone's magical speciality was to control their Murphyonic field to such a degree that they become a techno-cracker.Kinda like blending chaos theory and techno-sensitive.

[g33k]

  Looking for ideas on how one would be able to do a technomancer (combinig magic and technology to great effect.) Could someone point in the right direction or maybe even offer ideas of how to accomplish this?  Many thanks in advance!

Within the "canonical" Dresdenverse, I think it's "Sponsored Magic" and similar non-Mortal options are the only way to go.
Of course, you may not be playing in the "canonical" Dv; or your own take on it (and the group's) may be different.
Just be sure that pursuing your own fun vision doesn't tromp all over others' vision of the setting where you share the play...

[whitelaughter]

Should have thought of it before: what you want is written up in detail in another of Evil Hat's games, Spirit of the Century.
Further, since a 'gimme' of that setting is that PCs are all born on 1/1/01, you could take an 18 year old in a modern campaign and actually have them *be* a centurion.

[g33k]

Another thought:   what if you allow "technomancy" as a separate & incompatible branch of tech-centric magic...ish...stuff...  Read the hard drive on a computer without touching it?  Yep, can-do.  Read somone's mind? ??!?   Pthbbbt!  No such thing as magic, everyone knows that!!!

[whitelaughter]

Another thought:   what if you allow "technomancy" as a separate & incompatible branch of tech-centric magic...ish...stuff...  Read the hard drive on a computer without touching it?  Yep, can-do.  Read somone's mind? ??!?   Pthbbbt!  No such thing as magic, everyone knows that!!!

And it interferes with magic the same way magic interferes tech? Would be appropriate for debunkers, who would constantly get proof that magic doesn't exist.

[g33k]

... Would be appropriate for debunkers, who would constantly get proof that magic doesn't exist.

Not sure that it WOULD be so very "debunking" -- this kind of magic-ish stuff would constantly be proving that TECHNOMANCY exists -- hundreds of Petaflops on a cellphone, fully-immersive all-5-senses VR from an Oculus Rift, data-read from a powered-down device, etc.

That is to say, "impossible" and "unexplainable" ... sure it's "techno" flavored, but it nevertheless has that magical taint of "this isn't possible"

It's just -- for the debunker -- that the stupid, superstitious, old-fashioned mumbo-jumbo doesn't work.  Stick THAT in your pipe and Fuego it, Harry Dresden!       But for the rational technomancer, there's likely to be a niggling little worry that THEIR technomancy is still... well... magic.  It just has that taint.

FWIW -- I'd likely look at some of the Storyteller/Mage (WW/OPP) sources, and consider THEIR technomagic stuff.