How to make a spell "Harden Stone"

[kidneydrink]

The Back story: In the last adventure the party came across a worm that burrows through rock and devours really dense material that it can't burrow through, for example gems and rare metals and such. So our wizard decides that he is going to capture the creature by creating a spell to harden the rock while other party members distract it so that when it attempts to flee (via tunneling) the rock will be to hard for it to burrow through. (He already has a spell to remove the previous tunnels built into the room ("Stone Shape" a minor transformation spell)

 

The Problem: I'm trying to figure out what fits best as the powers basis. At first I thought it would be simply be Aid: Resistant PD Rock only however two problems came up as we were reading the book. First problem being how much or the room is being effected. For example you don't need a AoE to cast Aid on a giant to increase his strength so does that mean that the wizard can affect the entire room? That seems okay in this instance but I can see it getting abused rather easily such as a spell that Drains Resistant PD on a castle so that all the walls are as tough as paper. Seeing as a castle would be 1 target. However if Area of Effect is required it could affect multiple stone objects in it's area and the spell concept is more about one object (Wall, floor, excreta). The other issue is that Transform seems to be written to allow the alteration of items where Aid is written towards boosting a character. Now building the ability using transformation is fine, however it directly mentions under transformation that if you can do the same thing using a different ability then do so. There was also mention of just use barrier to create a new level of floor but that was denied rather quickly due to player preference (The character Transmutates things not summons them.)

 

Thank you for looking over my problem and any help would be appreciated.

Edited August 4, 2019 by kidneydrink

[Nolgroth]

Been awhile since I ran a game and studied the deep esoterica of Hero System, but I would judge that Aid would require AoE. It is a good method if the spell wears off but might get prohibitively expensive to do so.

 

Transform is not something I would recommend.

 

Barrier is your best bet if the change is permanent. The special effect of transforming the rock to this new "dense rock" can easily be simulated using that rule more easily than others. Just toss on a "Only to harden the existing rock"  requirement (which, at best, I would allow a -¼ Limitation on) and define it as the existing rock in the defined area. I know the Barrier power says "create," but sculptors "create" art from existing clay or stone. This is much the same concept.

 

Just my $0.02.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Aid rPD (only to stone or rock) is the easy, cheap method.  It gives a temporary effect so that you aren't altering the material forever. And yes, you'd need AE or you're only going to affect a small portion of stone (like one tile or an area the size of a hand).

 

Another option is transformation, which turns the stone in question into even tougher stone.  That said, its going to be expensive.  This would be a minor transform (you're not making it anything different, just enhancing it slightly) but rock has a LOT of body, and you need to do a pretty big area.

 

A third option is Entangle: it puts a permanent (or at least enduring) effect of making something that is difficult to break through, and you can call it a molecule-thin layer of super-stone that is tougher than the ground.  This has the drawback of not actually making the rock harder, but adding a layer of super hard stuff on top of it.  This too will be spendy (AE, high PD, although it could be 0 Body)

 

You could use Barrier, but its going to be even more expensive than transform and entangle to get that large of an area, and its even less permanent than the Aid option.

 

A final thought: you could just drain the tunneling ability of the worm.  Reducing its ability to penetrate rock would make it unable to escape as well.

[Lucius]

This might seem bardic, but you can change some of he Limitations:

 

Hard Rock Song:  (Total: 54 Active Cost, 14 Real Cost) Change Environment (-13m of Tunneling, Long-Lasting 1 Day), Costs Endurance Only To Activate (+1/4), Area Of Effect (16m Radius; +3/4) (54 Active Points); OAF (Guitar; -1), No Range (-1/2), Gestures (Requires both hands; -1/2), Incantations (-1/4), Concentration (1/2 DCV; -1/4), Extra Time (Full Phase, Only to Activate, -1/4) (Real Cost: 14)

 

A full phase to sing it, effects last all day. You may need to make it more powerful if the worm has more tunneling, but this will definitely slow it down.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary doesn't think the worm will like that a hole lot.

[kidneydrink]

Thanks for all the help. After talking it over it was decided that since it was to be an ability specifically designed for this one creature but needs to be usable in other situations the ability is going to be based on Change environment for the size and scale that it needs to be. All your suggestions and thought were really helpful and I was hoping that the Drain idea would be chosen. Thank you very much.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I hadn't thought of Change Environment, but it would work, as long as it was active.

[Thumper]

On 8/3/2019 at 6:24 PM, kidneydrink said:

First problem being how much or the room is being effected. For example you don't need a AoE to cast Aid on a giant to increase his strength so does that mean that the wizard can affect the entire room?

 

Aid without advantages should probably target and affect a man-sized object (i.e. 2m x .5m x .5m, 100kg), which means a Harden Stone spell without AoE would only affect a man-sized area.  I think it would be fair to adjust the size to 2m x 2m x .125m, which would be sufficient to stop Tunneling.  If you want the spell to affect all material in a large area, I would require it to be bought with an AoE.

 

Though really, I'd just build the spell like this:

• Harden Stone: Change Environment (-10m of Tunneling), Area Of Effect (32m Radius; +1) (20 Active Points)

Then add any appropriate limitations.