Encounters of the Third (Level spell) Kind

[ekarney]

I'm currently in the process of designing a d20 Cyberpunk RPG (Along with a few other people), using E6 rules.
And I'd like the Playground's thoughts on an idea for a "spell". I say spell like that because I'm renaming everything to better fir the theme, but details.

The spell in question would actually be of fourth level obtainable through very specific and difficult means, and would come as a choice with a couple of others and there'd be a high cost to pay for casting 4th level spells. I just wanted to use that title really badly.

What it does, is it allows you to contact the extra-terrestrials, my question is. What effects could that have? What effects would that have on a world similar to ours where casting and "magic" such as this has only been around for a couple of years? What would the spells effect be?

Also, if anyone has any spells they could see working in a Cyberpunk RPG I'd be happy to hear your suggestions too!

One final question, since it should be playable in 2 weeks - a month, would it be okay to post it here? And what specific board would I use?

[Inevitability]

What kind of aliens? The distant, millions-of-light-years away from us kind, the conquering, murderous kind, or the kind that builds secret bases on the moon and has been observing us for years? It'd make rather a big difference.


I imagine such a spell would answer some questions about the universe and it might cause some religious debate (not going in detail because forum rules) but then again, the fact that magic exists would too.

[ekarney]

What kind of aliens? The distant, millions-of-light-years away from us kind, the conquering, murderous kind, or the kind that builds secret bases on the moon and has been observing us for years? It'd make rather a big difference.


I imagine such a spell would answer some questions about the universe and it might cause some religious debate (not going in detail because forum rules) but then again, the fact that magic exists would too.

See, I'm not too sure about what kind, the spell in question would allow the caster to effectively communicate with any alien that would be interested in such a thing. But that's as far as I've gotten.

I've accounted for religion by having the in game religions based on the "ancestors are all around us" concept with no deity or afterlife outside of watching over people or other belief systems that similar in the way that they lack strict rules for dealing with other people and life forms outside of respect for the dead and similar.

Back to the aliens themselves though, what if the communication could allow them character in question to call down a precise orbital strike? Or had it function in a vaguely similar way to wish but with some variables and effects replaced with others.

For the record though, spells that mimic higher than 3rd level take up multiple casting slots to use and those slots are locked up until its "cooldown" time has passed. So something like wish would take up all your 3rd and 4th level slots and you wouldn't be able to use any of those slot for probably a week.