Need help fleshing out selection of spells dealing with fire/cold

[Dannyalcatraz]

In battle, if you kill a foe, your enemy is down a man. If you wound or disable a foe, your enemy is down 1-3 men, depending on how they care for their fallen.

Using your assassin example, imagine he is near a door guarded by 2 watchmen. From concealment, he induces hyperthermia- a.k.a. heat stroke- in one guard. Tht guard collapses, definitely disoriented, possibly unconscious. The other must get him to help...leaving the door unguarded for precious minutes.

As for this:

Erm... not quite. As I explained in my first post, magic in my system's setting is not an exception to physical law, but a part of it. For example (and I'm not sure why I didn't include this example in the first place), if you want to throw a fireball at your enemies, you've got to first learn how fires burn, then you have to learn how to convert arcane energy into thermal energy, and, optionally, you have to learn how to set aside more arcane energy as fuel for the fire you'll be making, in case you don't already have something to act as fuel. If you want to make a bigger fireball, you have to learn more effective formulae and techniques for converting arcane energy into thermal energy.

I got what youre saying, but it still must perforce be more rapid than natural processes in some way. Your magic system still violates the RW laws of thermodynamics, but it is merely being redefined in such a way that the caster is manipulating reality with a profound understanding of the fictional world's physics.

In your example, you're substituting arcane energy for natural fuel, which is faster than getting actual fuel to the location you want the fire to erupt.

So, in the example of a Hyperthermia or Hypothermia spell, you're making the body react to temperatures not generally experienced at that time & place, manipulating body temperature with arcane energy in much the same way- albeit with infinitely more subtlety- as was done with the arcane energy fueled fireball.

 

[System Ufera]

In battle, if you kill a foe, your enemy is down a man. If you wound or disable a foe, your enemy is down 1-3 men, depending on how they care for their fallen.

Using your assassin example, imagine he is near a door guarded by 2 watchmen. From concealment, he induces hyperthermia- a.k.a. heat stroke- in one guard. Tht guard collapses, definitely disoriented, possibly unconscious. The other must get him to help...leaving the door unguarded for precious minutes.

And that's another good point... I'm a rather "inside the box" thinker, in case you couldn't tell. I was thinking more along the lines of, you know, perhaps a nobleman is doing some winter hunting, and would normally survive due to adequate preparation, but then you, having different plans, sneak up near him, give him hypothermia, and leave his dead or dying body there. If he had bodyguards, and if you were sneaky enough, they'll likely assume the cold got to him, and that he died before they could save him. If the nobleman was one of those young brash types who felt no need for bodyguards, whoever recovers the body will see no cuts or any other signs of fighting, and likely say he died of hypothermia.

it still must perforce be more rapid than natural processes in some way. Your magic system still violates the RW laws of thermodynamics...

While I realize that my system is inevitably and intentionally going to violate RW physics, I'm curious as to why you specifically mentioned thermodynamics.

...manipulating body temperature with arcane energy in much the same way- albeit with infinitely more subtlety- as was done with the arcane energy fueled fireball.

Granted, I'm no expert, but I would assume that the amount of heat required to make you instantly sick would be beyond the amount of heat required to cause combustion. That's most of why I had argued that, in battle, one might as well just burn someone instead of making them sick, because (and correct me if I'm wrong) making someone sick with hyperthermia, without making enough heat to cause combustion, would take more time than simply burning them.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Hypothermia sets in when the body's core temp drops @3.5F, and hyperthermia occurs when the core temp increases about that much. Water- the body's main component- doesn't boil until 212F. Combustion would require a change of hundreds of degrees- paper is 451F.

 

[System Ufera]

Hypothermia sets in when the body's core temp drops @3.5F, and hyperthermia occurs when the core temp increases about that much. Water- the body's main component- doesn't boil until 212F. Combustion would require a change of hundreds of degrees- paper is 451F.

I'm not going to say you're wrong, but rather, that you're addressing the wrong thing. I wasn't talking about the temperature requirements for hypo- or hyperthermia to merely happen. I was talking about said requirements for the symptoms of either to take effect instantly for the purposes of a battle. I wasn't entirely sure how to word what I had said in such a way that makes this clear, though, so I'll try again:

What I'm assuming, and I admit that this is no more than an assumption and would thus appreciate being corrected if I'm wrong, is that a greater change in temperature would cause the symptoms to take effect faster, and given that, mathematically, the greater the temperature change, the closer the symptoms become to occurring instantly for the purposes of battle. I, personally, visualize this on a Cartesian graph, where the x axis would be the amount of temperature change required to have the symptoms occur in a given amount of time, represented by y; the function, I'd imagine, would look similar to x = 1 / y^2 , thus meaning that the closer one variable gets to zero, the closer the other gets to infinity. At some point before that, though, we'd accept a certain amount of time as being "low enough" (and thus a certain amount of change in temperature as being "high enough") for our purposes. But, I would further admittedly assume, that point would involve such a great change in temperature that burning (or the direct-damage equivalent for coldness) would occur at or before the point we reach anyway.

And, once again, I must maintain my fallibility and my lack of actual knowledge. Sure, it may or may not seem more than necessary, but recently, on another website's forum, I ended up causing quite a stir when, despite having been just as insistent regarding my inexperience, I somehow gave the impression that I thought I was an infallible expert. I just want to make sure that I don't somehow make the same impression here.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, my understanding of it is that you start seeing symptoms of exposure before you reach those temperatures. Once you have reached them, though, you're going to experience the main symptoms at full strength.

So, if you can instantly alter someone's core body temp +-3.5F, they will be disoriented and experiencing other major hypo/hyperthermic symptoms.

Even before someone's core temp drops 3.5F, exposure to extreme cold- say, by immersion in icy water- can cause immediate uncontrolled shivering, loss of coordination, loss of control of your respiratory system, and even a heart attack.

Similarly, a blast of intense heat can cause similar difficulties.

 

[System Ufera]

Well, my understanding of it is that you start seeing symptoms of exposure before you reach those temperatures. Once you have reached them, though, you're going to experience the main symptoms at full strength.

So, if you can instantly alter someone's core body temp +-3.5F, they will be disoriented and experiencing other major hypo/hyperthermic symptoms.

Even before someone's core temp drops 3.5F, exposure to extreme cold- say, by immersion in icy water- can cause immediate uncontrolled shivering, loss of coordination, loss of control of your respiratory system, and even a heart attack.

Similarly, a blast of intense heat can cause similar difficulties.

Ah... well, that clears things up! Usually, when I think of afflictions of any kind, I imagine something slow-acting, such as an infection, but if hypo- and hyperthermia are an exception to that, then they would be useful in battle.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Ah... well, that clears things up! Usually, when I think of afflictions of any kind, I imagine something slow-acting, such as an infection, but if hypo- and hyperthermia are an exception to that, then they would be useful in battle.

Well, its still highly hypothetical- there's no real data on "instant" hypo/hyperthermic effects that aren't starting from the body's exterior and progressing inward. By the time the core's temp alters that crucial +-3.5F, the extremities have been alter by far more degrees.

But I can't help but think an instant core temp alteration of that magnitude wouldn't be devastating...but subtle. That is, potentially life-threatening, but without corresponding visible signs of attack. Instead, it will look like a poison or disease.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Another possible subtle effect would be using magic to "prime" an area for being more vulnerable to subsequent thermomantic effects.

For instance, using magic to move moisture from the air and object surfaces in a goven space while raising temperatures slightly might make a small fire attack flash over into a major conflagration. On the other end, doing the exact opposite could transform a small chilling attack into something that makes a room into a massive hazard of black ice.

And yet, no danger would apparent, and if nothing happened within the magic's duration, the space would return to normal.

Think..."Fire Trap" and its reverse.

 

[System Ufera]

Another possible subtle effect would be using magic to "prime" an area for being more vulnerable to subsequent thermomantic effects.

For instance, using magic to move moisture from the air and object surfaces in a goven space while raising temperatures slightly might make a small fire attack flash over into a major conflagration. On the other end, doing the exact opposite could transform a small chilling attack into something that makes a room into a massive hazard of black ice.

And yet, no danger would apparent, and if nothing happened within the magic's duration, the space would return to normal.

Think..."Fire Trap" and its reverse.

This is a good idea, though I'm not entirely sure myself how exactly this could be explained in terms of the flavor of how it works. That is to say, I'm not very educated when it comes to the physics and such behind how moist the air is.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, the "fire trap" idea is essentially what happens in the summers of California and Texas...or when someone treats an area with accelerants before committing arson.

The reverse would be like what happens when you run your sprinklers before an arctic cold snap.