Is spellcasting one of the class features that is prohibited from affecting starships?
Most spells don't seem to have range or reach to affect most starship combats, but one spell in particular (Passwall) calls out that it cannot be used to pass through starship bulkheads - thereby implying that some spells _could_ affect starships.
The spell I am currently interested in is "Supercharge Weapon". If it can affect starship weapons, would it use the 4d6 or 2d6 boost, (or variable depending on weapon) and if not, can future versions of the spell please note (as Passwall does) that it does not affect Starship weapons?
Looking for official rulings due to just levelling my Technomancer and being in a scheduled game soon.
Thanks,
WolfhawkAz
To help with the discussion:
Quote: SUPERCHARGE WEAPON 1
School evocation
Casting Time 1 standard action
Range touch
Targets one weapon
Duration see text
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
You supercharge the target weapon. If the weapon’s next attack hits (provided it is made before the end of the next round), the attack deals 4d6 additional damage if the weapon is a single target attack or 2d6 additional damage if the weapon attacks all creatures in an area. This bonus damage is the same type as the weapon's normal damage.
Interesting question. You have to touch the weapon. To me, this would mean you would have to be outside, on the hull, in order to touch the weapon and cast the spell.
Being outside should be very dangerous, especially if a character is next to a weapon that is in an arc that took a critical effect.
From what I Have read about the spell and about "Other Actions in Starship Combat" (page 322), it would like take a while for a character to get next to the weapon in order to cast the spell but they could do it.
Give the nature of space combat, I would think the reduced "area" damage would be correct.
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Easy answer: a ship weapon mount is not a Weapon, in the sense that Supercharge Weapon means. After all, you don't make attacks with it, you make gunnery checks.
So, if your question is "Can you use spells on ships?" the answer is "Yes, depending on the spell." If the question is "Can you use spells, to effect Ship Combat?", the answer is "No, not currently. Only a spell that specifically says it effects Ship Combat, effects Ship Combat."
Gary Bush wrote: To help with the discussion:
<snip>
Interesting question. You have to touch the weapon. To me, this would mean you would have to be outside, on the hull, in order to touch the weapon and cast the spell.
Being outside should be very dangerous, especially if a character is next to a weapon that is in an arc that took a critical effect.
From what I Have read about the spell and about "Other Actions in Starship Combat" (page 322), it would like take a while for a character to get next to the weapon in order to cast the spell but they could do it.
Give the nature of space combat, I would think the reduced "area" damage would be correct.
I don't think time would be a problem if it was my normal duty station (next to the turret's weapon). I would also say that "some" part of the weapon is probably inside the turret, but yes being an Android in a skin suit would help with the vaccuum suckage (Pun intended). The spell doesn't require me to fire the weapon, so why not just charge it and let the gunner do his job?
WolfhawkAz wrote: The spell I am currently interested in is "Supercharge Weapon". If it can affect starship weapons, would it use the 4d6 or 2d6 boost I'm pretty sure that doesn't apply to Starship weapons. As page 292 states, hit point damage and hull point damage aren't remotely the same and aren't supposed to interact with one another. Yes, the spell just states "damage", but I would be extremely surprised if that was supposed to include hull point damage. It's a level 1 spell, that would be ridiculous.
Starship weapons deal 10 times their listed amount in hit point damage, so Supercharge Weapon would only add 4d6 divided by 10 hull point damage, provided you even got it to work.
Nixitur wrote: WolfhawkAz wrote: The spell I am currently interested in is "Supercharge Weapon". If it can affect starship weapons, would it use the 4d6 or 2d6 boost I'm pretty sure that doesn't apply to Starship weapons. As page 292 states, hit point damage and hull point damage aren't remotely the same and aren't supposed to interact with one another. Yes, the spell just states "damage", but I would be extremely surprised if that was supposed to include hull point damage. It's a level 1 spell, that would be ridiculous.
Starship weapons deal 10 times their listed amount in hit point damage, so Supercharge Weapon would only add 4d6 divided by 10 hull point damage, provided you even got it to work. Heard the divide by ten argument before. The reason I don't buy into it is from the spell description:
Quote: This bonus damage is the same type as the weapon's normal damage. So from a text description, one could consider the damage to be of type "Starship".
From the scaling perspective, if 4d6 added to a 1d4F damage laser pistol doesn't break the the system, and the lightest starship weapon I can find is the Gyrolaser at 1d8, although around CR 1 or 2, ships seem to mount light lasers (2d4), linked gyrolasers (2d8) coil guns (4d4) or missile launchers (4d8), then having the spellcaster use precious spell slots on each shot, with a miss using up the spell with no benefit seems to produce similar damage compared to having my character fire for effect with two off-arc weapons (which can be done endlessly for non-ammo weapons). This becomes especially true since higher level weapons scale for both starship and personal weapons into damage that diminished the 4d6 (or 2d6) add.
Basicly, the extremely small number of times it could be used at low levels, combines with the lose-it-whether-the-shot-hits-or-not part of the spell, and the fact that starship weapons start with more dice than regular weapons, tells me that it's not overpowered.
Having said that, Metaphysician's argument has some merits (at least to me), although the gunnery check is described as part of the attack procedure.
To me, it all boils down to one rule that tells you you can't do this, and that is the rule that sais any class feature can only be used in starship combat if it specifically mentions it can. Neither this spell or technomancer spells in general mention being useable in starship combat, so as far as I'm concerned, they're not.
The_Defiant wrote: To me, it all boils down to one rule that tells you you can't do this, and that is the rule that sais any class feature can only be used in starship combat if it specifically mentions it can. Neither this spell or technomancer spells in general mention being useable in starship combat, so as far as I'm concerned, they're not. P.322 core rulebook specifically calls out spellcasting as something doable during starship combat (The blue section on "Other Actions in Starship Combat"), so clearly spellcasting is usable. The part in question is simply which spells are usable and what consequences do they have. Some may be range limited (again the blue section on 322 indicates that a character might have to reposition for a round to become adjacent to another crewman - likely for healing spells) while others would have no usable range (magic missile vs enemy fails due to extreme size of hexes)...
The ongoing debate is why we clearly need an official ruling (and hopefully and faq entry/updated text).
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