If I hit you with a naked hand, Corpus stops it.
If I hit you with a gloved hand, "worn by" property. Do you need Intellego to stop it?
If I hit you with a held stick, "held by" property. Do you need Intellego to stop it?
If I hit you with a thrown stick, "thrown by" property. Do you need Intellego to stop it?
In all 3 cases, the motive force is there to be affected by the ward. Because that's what a ward does, kill motive forces.
Now you could wonder about Vilano, is it "propelled by me", "propelled by sling" or some other source. Because that could mean that a ward against Animal would stop all rocks thrown by sling, in addition to Corpus wards.
I'd like to see a rationalisation of wards that also allows for Vilano sling effects to be treated consistently. Specifically I think that Vilano slings can ignore MR and Wards because they are natural "throws".
I thought Rego used in Vilano spells is irrelevant to MR, and when that is expanded to include Wards the force acting on the stone of the sling is natural force of momentum, not the sling or the spell caster.
If you want to house rule that intellect is needed then phrase shouldn't be "thrown by" but "what is acting directly upon the object", and how far away is the "actor".
A Corpus ward comes into effect on a gloves hand not because of any property of the glove, but because of the hand in the glove. The hand gets to the boundary of the ward and the MR vs Pen needs to be resolved. I know that is not RAW but I've given up trying to get wards in RAW to make any sense. To me they are barriers enacting directly in the Form material. Any extra intelligence would need an Intellego req and also consider how difficult it is to query non sentient materials.
There's no momentum in ME, the motive force stays with the object.
EDIT: Vilano is relevant because the motive force cannot be magic or MR would stop it. My head hurts - is MR some form of ward?
Think of this unrelated "electric ward": whenever you touch an electric appliance, it stops working. If you touch a piece of wood, electricity stops working there too, it is an intrisic quality of the ward and requires no knowledge. Apply this same logic to "motive force" and you'll see that you don't need Intellego if the ward shuts down "Corpus motive forces".
IOW, a glove cannot cause damage and it's the hand behind that does, stopped by Corpus. Whereas a sword naturally causes damage. That's a nice breaking point, even if it doesn't match MR behavior.
I haven't given up on making sense of wards, but I'd rather use modern thinking and say Corpus won't stop a wielded sword. I'll handle demons the same way I handle pink dots: by handwaving around it.
When it comes to the question of whether or not a corpus ward stops a swung sword, it might also be worth considering that affecting a human is split into two forms: corpus, and mentem. It's entirely possible that you'd need both to stop human motive forces entirely - even if the former will physically stop a man from bodily crossing a bounded space.
I think this is more a problem with how one conceives the effect to function. The 'Target' of a Ward isn't the creature that can't cross or affect it in my mind. Instead the Target is whatever it is being cast upon if it is a 'normal' say Target Individual effect, or the ring/circle if it is that sort. It creates an effect/barrier on that target, that being the 'protection from X'. It doesn't need to penetrate against whatever X is because that isn't the target of the spell. X needs to in some way defeat the spell, because it and the protection it affords are in place and it is trying to bypass them.
A ward doesn't need some sort of Intellego effect ( taken for granted or not ) in order to defend the target vs. what it is constructed against. It isn't like some sort of Rego effect semi-consciously only affecting detected/nominated targets. Instead it is an antipathy force constructed against a specific (sub)class of thing to be defended against. It isn't an effecting searching for things to act upon, it is a force constructed that only 'can' defend against certain things. I see this is sort being tied to the platonic forms if you will of the things affected. The sympathies necessary to construct an effect that defends against faeries are totally different from those necessary to defend against demons. The one isn't waiting to detect faeries and letting demons go through, it is just a barrier that only affects faeries, because that is the sympathy/form with which it is constructed.
Spells in general quite often must penetrate the MR of things that are not the target of the spell.
Magus creates a magical fire (the target is the fire), it must penetrate MR to burn something.
Magus moves a tree limb (the target is the tree limb), it must penetrate MR to smack something.
Magus shoots a crystal dart (the target is the dirt on the ground), it must penetrate MR to impale something.
While the thing being warded may not be the target for the purposes of putting up the spell, the thing being warded is very definitely being affected by the spell while it is active - thus, Magic Resistance. Don't think of wards as 'force fields', they are Rego spells that control things in a direct fashion (repulsor beams would be a better analogy).
The word target has slightly different meanings in Ars magica, based on how it defines the Forms.
The big "t" Target is what matches the underlying Form. The small "t" target is what I generally refer to as the recipient of the spell. So, Pilum of Fire, creates an item of Ignem as it's target, and then it throws it (cosmetic effect) at the recipient of the spell.
The difference in my view is that in pretty much all of those instances that the spell or thing created by the spell is then being imposed onto something else aggressively/assertively. The ward isn't, it is being challenged so to speak by the creature in question. The effect is in place, and rather than being imposed on that creature, it is up to the creature to overcome it (or not). I suppose the way I view it then is that the assumption/default goes to the defender.
