Durability-change spells

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Dracolych68
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Durability-change spells

Unread post by Dracolych68 »

What happens to wood when you cast Ironwood on it when you are on or travel to, for instance, Palladium, or Nightbane?

I was debating this on Discord with Eliakon on the Palladium Community Discord server. He said,
What if the only change was to make something MDC.
And thus like MDC armor… travel to SDC worlds is just 1:1


The thing is, the magic changes it enough that vampires no longer recognize it as 'wood' so no x2 damage. Is that really the only effect from an 8th lvl (Warlock)/ 12th lvl (LLW/General) spell? Yeah, it's going to or is cast in a lower magic area, but you are still casting a spell to fortify it and flooding it with a minimum of 50 PPE.

I went looking for similar spells to this, and the Fragile Bone to MDC Bone looks similar enough and actually has an SDC counterpart in Byzantium, Bone to Steel. Eliakon pointed out that the two spells, Ironwood and Bone to MDC Bone are actually quite different, with an actual duration and weight change. However, when I went looking through the Earth elemental spell list for Rifts and comparing with Palladium Fantasy, since Rift's Elemental list is the only other place Ironwood is, I ran across a bunch of other inconsistencies, very similar to the Ironwood problem.

There is a whole list of Earth Elemental spells that turn an object from one substance to another, but are missing a bunch of information.

The spells are:
    Dirt to Clay
    Dirt to Sand
    Clay to Lead
    Clay to Stone
    Clay or Stone to Iron
    Stone to Flesh
    Wood to Stone
Every single one of these has generic text of
This transformation spell enables the warlock to change [material] into [other material], affecting 60 pounds (27 kg) of [material] per
level of experience.
and it's maddening because that's it. No change in how much SDC something has, no change in how much room something takes up, nothing. There's a reason for the joke "Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?"

There are some related spells that help with this a little, but they are still not enough. The spells Rock to Mud and Metal to Clay list how much damage they do to Golems and armor, but the numbers seem off. There is also the spell Sculpt and Animate Clay Animals, which says if you use Clay to Stone you x2 the SDC and if you use Clay to Iron you get x3. The problem is that the only places the SDC of Clay is mentioned is the Sculpt and Animate spell, where the clay is magically tough, 20 SDC per level, or the Wall of Clay spell, which is 50 SDC per level.

In short, what I'm asking is how do you convert between all of these? How much damage does turning a section of stone wall into clay do? How much shrinkage is there between the size of a stone paver, that paver turned to clay, and the clay paver turned to lead? Yeah, as a GM you can just hand-wave it as story, but consistence keeps the game flowing smoothly.

Any help?
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darthauthor
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Re: Durability-change spells

Unread post by darthauthor »

Here's my guess.

"How do you convert between all of these?
If the weight stays the same then the size/quantity of material changes.

How much damage does turning a section of stone wall into clay do?

I don't think of it as "damage" so much as a reduction of SDC. I'd keep it simple. Reduce by half for metal to stone. Half again for stone to clay. Why? Its magic! That's why

If the size of the material can't change (like animate clay figures Earth Warlock spell level 7 or whatever) then the density changes. So you have magically induced high and low density materials. The "new" material changes in SDC/MD with whatever it is supposed to be.

The way I see it, changing "material" puts it in a category what lets you do different things with it. Whether it is clay, iron, lead, sand, stone, or wood.
Let the spell caster decide "if" they want soft or hard wood.
If they have ironwood, it had the durability of iron but the weight and float ability of wood. That's what's great about it and the point of the spell. Changing things so you can shape them with your hands and/or tools and then changing them tougher material so they can take and do more damage.

So that's my opinion for now.
I'm not the only tool in the shed or necessarily the sharpest. If anyone has any better ideas, I'd like to read them.

Very Respectfully,

If you convert the wood to stone, double the SDC and keep the size the same. Also, it sinks. Maybe, with the GM permission, if they want harder stone half the size and double the points again. Same with iron.
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