Platonic Form Reach option

[Dark Archon]

Lack of details in the second Reach option disappoints me. What is a "complex device"? Can it be a gun? Mortar? Car? Plane? Death Star? And how would the following work, given that they somehow must spend the Mana and inflict the damage?

[Caimbeul]

A complex device can be anything that still fits the spell factors. A gun? Yes. A car? If the scale factor is big enough: Yes.
Keep in mind, a single use per point of mana can be anything from a simple action to an extended one. rolls != actions

[Dark Archon]

A complex device can be anything that still fits the spell factors. A gun? Yes. A car? If the scale factor is big enough: Yes.
Keep in mind, a single use per point of mana can be anything from a simple action to an extended one. rolls != actions

Okay. How would you roll with player summoning a platonic car and driving in it to the another city? How much Mana is spent per mile? How fast it is? How much damage is it able to deal by crashing into stuff? Assume Forces 3 option to make it look real.

[Mrmdubois]

Okay. How would you roll with player summoning a platonic car and driving in it to the another city? How much Mana is spent per mile? How fast it is? How much damage is it able to deal by crashing into stuff? Assume Forces 3 option to make it look real.

One trip=one use is the most obvious and straightforward way to do that. In a crash to do damage assume its y’know, a car.

[Neos01]

Okay. How would you roll with player summoning a platonic car and driving in it to the another city? How much Mana is spent per mile? How fast it is? How much damage is it able to deal by crashing into stuff? Assume Forces 3 option to make it look real.

I think that the car would still use fuel (normal or platonic), that said one mana for trip as Mrmdubois said seems reasonable.
For all other stats i would use that of a normal car

[Dark Archon]

All right. How would it change for, let's say, combat plane? Should Platonic F-22 spend one Mana per combat flight? What about using plane guns and missles? What damage should they deal?

[Mrmdubois]

All right. How would it change for, let's say, combat plane? Should Platonic F-22 spend one Mana per combat flight? What about using plane guns and missles? What damage should they deal?

One flight counts as one use of a combat plane. I’d consider armaments an additional casting of the spell, but it doesn’t really matter that much.

[MovingMind]

Well, being involved in a dogfight with a platonic form combat aircraft is ill advised, as you'd be rolling quite often, and potency limits your rolls; you don't want your plane to disappear mid flight.

[Mrmdubois]

and potency limits your rolls

No it doesn't.

[Tessie]

More specifically, you need to spend Potency on Mana capacity (and then Mana to fill that capacity). For each action taken with the object as a tool, one Mana is spent, and if all Mana is spent the object disintegrates.
You can get more than one roll per Potency if you use it for extended actions (since all rolls are part of a single action), or by refilling it with Mana through the Channel Mana spell.

Edit: In a dogfight, however, each roll would be a Dodge roll, and thus an action. And you might not have a good opportunity to cast Channel Mana. So you're practically limited by Potency (and Mana).

[Dark Archon]

I am currently engaged in the argument, in which other ST insists that creating a "complex device" with Platonic Form is impossible, because you would need to imagine plane completely, "down to the last bolt and screw", for it to be able to work. Arguing is really hard without much information about said Reach option or detailed information about how Imago building, so - does anybody have any thoughts on it?

[Tessie]

I am currently engaged in the argument, in which other ST insists that creating a "complex device" with Platonic Form is impossible, because you would need to imagine plane completely, "down to the last bolt and screw", for it to be able to work. Arguing is really hard without much information about said Reach option or detailed information about how Imago building, so - does anybody have any thoughts on it?

If it has to be of your own design, it's by definition no longer a platonic form. You don't design anything with Platonic Form. You give form to the idea of whatever you want to create.

[Mrmdubois]

Yeah, your ST is wrong. If it were that way then there’d probably be a skill check like there is with Shaping being used to craft stuff.

[Neos01]

I am currently engaged in the argument, in which other ST insists that creating a "complex device" with Platonic Form is impossible, because you would need to imagine plane completely, "down to the last bolt and screw", for it to be able to work. Arguing is really hard without much information about said Reach option or detailed information about how Imago building, so - does anybody have any thoughts on it?

If it was that way a master of life creating a fish should visualize every single cell!!
I think that scale apart the limit of complex platonic form is only that it should exist at least one working version of the item , so no teleportation devices

[Dark Archon]

Okay then, the lack of skill check probably indicates something.
Does somebody know that Platonic Form is made of? I mean, there is phrase

The mage may pattern Mana into behaving as it does within tass, creating a magical object formed of pure Mana.

but both for me and my ST the difference between "tass" and "Mana which behaves itself like tass" is not immediately clear, and there is following phrase in Eidolon:

Eidolons are still made of solidified Mana

which seems to be at odds with previous quote.

Also, what gives Platonic Form ability to affect physical world? And why it can affect world in ways a more advanced spell, Eidolon, can't? For example, Eidolon of fire cannot deal burning damage, but I'd assume that Platonic Form of flamethrower can both deal damage and start flames. What is the difference?