Advanced Scale

[Charlaquin]

If the spell doesn't make any sense for affecting the people in the building then why would it affect them? Say you cast a spell to make all the doorknobs fall off? How exactly are the residents supposed to have their doorknobs fall off?

It's not that a Mage can be proscribtive or prescriptive but that some targets naturally are exempted. People are similar enough that usually you can't discriminate between them, though if you cast s spell on everyone's right hand and one guy doesn't have a right hand...

Alright, that makes sense to me. Just depends on what the Mage in the example wants to do to the building then, I guess.

[Jakondite]

*reads above* .... We're changing the size of the building with Shrink / Grow Matter, right? Even if it did target all appropriate targets within the area, it'd still only target things made of Matter. You'd need to increase Life to Affect the people in it in that particular manner to make them smaller / larger. Or am I missing something here?

[Mrmdubois]

The OP never actually specified what the spell is going to be.

[Jakondite]

I know, but that's pretty important a detail for this kind of thing. I mean, if your actually changing the size (via Matter) then you literally -can't- target people. If your changing the Size via say, Space, it's an entirely different ball game - similar effects with two different results and methods to reaching those results.

[Mrmdubois]

The OP is talking about using Advanced Scale to do a thing, he didn't say what the thing was. So forgive me if I'm reading you incorrectly, but it seems like you're jumping to a conclusion about what the thing is without actually knowing what the thing is. Without knowing what the thing is it's not that helpful talking about the possible effects of various arcana because those results could be infinitely varied.

[Asaram]

To put it simply; if he wants to change the shape of the building all in one go with one spell? Count the size of the building, good luck. If he wants to "spell" the building so X effect affects everyone in the area? Use area of effect.

That's what I can think of anyways. What he is trying to do really is pretty relevant here.

[Jakondite]

Mrmdubois *goes to reread* Sorry, your right. It took me like 3 rereads of that to realize when he asked if you could increase the size of an object a spell can affect that he wasn't necessarily referring to altering the size of the object.

... Still, I think what the spell effect being attempted is is important to the subject at hand. My thoughts are, if your using a spell that can target something within an area (say your increasing the size of an object with matter, or your destroying matter) then it can only effect things within the purview of the spell. However, if your doing something that -can- have an effect on other things as an AoE, it will unless you remove that option with fate.

[Archive111]

The OP never actually specified what the spell is going to be.

The character wants to cast a ritual using the Ghost Gate spell to transform a small apartment building into the Twilight state. The character is a Gnosis 5 Moros Adept with Death 4, Matter 3, Prime 3, Space 2 and Time 2. The character has Ghost Gate as a Praxes but not as a Rote. The cabal is based out of a mostly empty apartment building and the Moros wants to be able to move the building to Twilight. It appears he does want to transfer the contents (he feels they should be treated as part of the structure) but not the occupants.

[Mrmdubois]

Ok, then because as Charlaquin pointed out spells with an area effect aren't pre or proscriptive the Mage would need to evacuate the building before attempting to do that. Someone mentioned pulling a fire alarm, that might be a good first step.

This would also destroy the actual building during the conversion to the ephemera of Twilight. The spell would almost certainly risk Paradox from Sleeper witnesses as well, but since the conversion is permanent it wouldn't be subject to Dissonance at least.

The building will lose its utilities but you'll have a building's worth of ephemera on hand to shape however you want which is cool. There's also the possibility of those pesky Mages who want to maintain the Veil being cheesed off about something so blatant.

Still, when all is said and done, why are you taking a -20 dice penalty when you can spend a Reach on Advanced Scale and take much smaller penalties?

[Asaram]

He is using advanced scale. The building he wants to shift is size 60.
Anyways, since he wants the entire area to go in there... I think an area of effect spell sounds fair. Would be blatant as fudge but since that wasn't part of the question I will assume that is irrelevant

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, I'd say area effect is the way to go, just call in a bomb threat or something first to get all the people out.

[Aspel]

The character wants to cast a ritual using the Ghost Gate spell to transform a small apartment building into the Twilight state. The character is a Gnosis 5 Moros Adept with Death 4, Matter 3, Prime 3, Space 2 and Time 2. The character has Ghost Gate as a Praxes but not as a Rote. The cabal is based out of a mostly empty apartment building and the Moros wants to be able to move the building to Twilight. It appears he does want to transfer the contents (he feels they should be treated as part of the structure) but not the occupants.

Like I quoted previously, when you use Area, everything in the area is effected. If you turn a small apartment building into Twilight, everything in that building will also go into Twilight, people and all. If you want to exempt them, you'll first want to cast Warding Gesture as an Area of Effect spell. Although then I guess they'd all fall to the ground, so yeah, bomb threat would be better.

Worth noting is that you'd also need to see most of the area, though your ST might say that being in the building counts as touching the building for the purposes of centering an AoE.

[lnodiv]

your ST might say that being in the building counts as touching the building for the purposes of centering an AoE.

Dave has actually confirmed this.

[arthexis]

Mmm, yeah, I agree that using Ghost Gate in this case would move everyone, building, contents, tenants, everything. Either use Wards and Signs or cast a Death Shielding spell on them first so that they are unaffected by your own Death spell. My ST gut feeling is that this would require standing in the middle of the building, taking a Reach for Advanced Scale, a Reach for Advanced duration and about a -6 dice penalty (since its a whole building, not just a house) and perhaps another -2 to make it last at least a full day? If cast as a ritual, the required Reach can be waved off (since they already get 2 free Reach for that spell at that point).

[Aspel]

lnodiv Ah. I was thinking about whether or not people and things in the apartment would be effected by an AoE, since they aren't actually in Sensory range, but at the same time they're still "part" of the building in the same way your gut bacteria are part of you.