That wouldn't make it in our saga: no spell of base level less than 1 is allowed, so the minimum "size" of an Intangible Tunnel is allowing through 10 level spells. Unless you fork later the tunnel.
Not that I'm saying that you should take only Natural base levels just because we do, but letting things with base 0 (or negative, to that matter) can get you into a conceptual hell. The higher the base level, the more it does, so it seems reasonable that they do nothing below certain levels, like, well, 1.
Wanting to contribute to this I sat down and worked out one spell each for the mentem and imaginem art combinations. That was easy, but getting to a keyboard with sufficient time to type them has been a much larger challenge.
A pair of complementary spells suggested themselves from the level 1 intellego Imaginem guideline "Memorize or perfect your memory about an image you have encountered."
By dipping a fingertip into a body of water then rubbing between finger and thumb, magi may discern wether the water is safe to drink. A common spell among spring covenants and young peregrine magi who do not have a stable source of clean water. In the Rhine, there is a coin-flips' chance that any magi will make the same terrible pun about Worms.
A small spell which orders a cluster of vermin to travel as far away from the caster as possible. This does little to rescue spoiled food or water which is already worm-eaten, but does wonders to repel biting flies or inquisitive ants. The Worms' Armageddon is usually cast still and silent when bees make themselves known.
You have to touch one of the vermin and it only works for duration momentary, that doesn't sound efficient. You could change the target to circle. Then you'd have two magnitudes free to raise the duration to sun and you'd still do it at range touch. The caster draws a circle around the targeted piece of whatever, casts the spell, then all of the critters within the circle take off and keep moving until the next sunrise/sunset.
Edit:
Forcing someone to make eye contact with ReCo didn't have a low enough base.
The closest is CrMe 10: base 4 "put a though in someone's mind", +2 Voice (Based on "Catch the Eye" in MoH p92, as discussed in this thread)
But Fafnir had an excellent adjustment proposal which I'm going to build upon :mrgreen:
Which base 2 ReCo guideline are you using? "Make a target lose control of a body part." in the core book would not necessarily force someone to make eye contact.
I have to agree. It could be used to snap a target out of eye contact, but it's not precise enough to turn the eyes of the target and focus them to a precise point in space. The examples in the corebook for the same guideline include a) making someone stutter and b) making someone's hand spasm, so that in both cases the target has trouble using the respective body part. The proposed "Look me in the eye" spell would be more like making someone utter a specific word or a hand perform a specific gesture.
Yeah, I think you're right. That was wishful thinking on my part
If you add +1 for size, you get 100 cubic paces of clay.
Dry clay is 1.6 tonnes per cubic meter, or 670 kg per cubic pace (1 pace is 75cm), so you have 67 tonnes of clay on your hands.
If you materialize this 200 paces (150m, 500 feet) above your target, it will reach the ground in 5.5s at 190km/h (120 mph)
And that's a lvl 5 spell
If you add another +1 for size, you can easily destroy most castles in a single lvl 10 spell, if they don't have protection from magic.
One thing to keep in mind, is that no matter what the level, if a spell is sufficiently "impressive" in terms of effects, it should be bumped up to Ritual. Personally, I tend to think that affecting a base Ind should never count as "RItual-impressive" in terms of sheer size alone. But the more you add in terms of size magnitudes, the iffier it all gets, particularly if you already have a pretty large base ...
How about trying to achieve the same effect by other means (e.g. a different guideline), or use the same guideline to achieve a slightly different effect?
For example, the current name would be an appropriately sarcastic one for a spell that "crosses" the target's eyes, making him look funny and effectively unable to see things except in the broadest terms, as if from the corner of one's eye. Ideally, with D:Diam or D:Conc. If you edit your original post, we can keep the link on the first page unchanged
Yes, that's a nice safeguard.
For this, +1 size is probably ok, but adding another +1 size or +2 Group (rain of 67t clay boulders) would definitely warrant bumping up to Ritual.
I want to correct this before other people get led astray.
1 pace is approximately 91.44 cm. It looks like you perhaps rounded 1 in to 2.5 cm and used 10 in = 1 ft instead of the correct 12 in = 1 ft. That leads to nearly double the mass you've given: 1223 kg per cubic pace.
200 paces = 600 feet = roughly 193 m.
Not that this is how ArM5 calculates the damage, but this is a bit off. It takes a bit over 6s (more than 1 round), and that's probably assuming it isn't viscid clay. From this point I'm estimating based on knowing the physics but not knowing the values. I'm pretty sure viscid clay would start to break apart with that much air resistance. While the clay sticks together, it's mushy enough that that much air resistance is likely to deform it. At the same time, it may not be falling for enough time to deform that much. But that should mean slightly more resistance, resulting in slightly longer and a little lower terminal velocity.
Now note that a person can casually walk more than 6 m in 6 s. So if a target can move an is aware, it will be very hard to hit the target with a Targeting Roll. Yes, this does work better against structures for that reason. At the same time, something solid works a lot better, like granite. ArM5 does take this into account, viscid clay causing 1/4 the damage of the same size (mass or weight? - have to double check if that's how size is used here) rock.
I actually took the first one I found on Wikipedia.
I couldn't find the definition of a pace used in the book., what page is it on?
I guess you get more stuff, but you need to materialize it a bit lower to achieve maximal damage and reach the floor within 6s, it doesn't change much.
You get 10 times the volume of clay, but it causes 1/4 the damage, it seems like a good deal, especially since rock takes an extra 2 magnitudes...
I would calculate damage from the Impact table at +1 per 2 feet.
Let's say we drop it from 300 feet = 100 paces, that's still at least +75 damage if you count clay as "soft"
I was thinking dry clay, since the guideline doesn't specify.
Not cooked clay, mind you, although I sure hope that my brick road spell will be allowed
Yeah, if you materialize it high enough to need 6s to fall, it can be avoided easily.
You want to materialize it much lower if you're going for a moving target
Note for future flattenings, easy shapes for 100 cubic paces are:
A wooden object held in the caster's hands levitates on the user's command for as long as they concentrate. Young apprentices tasked with stirring pots in the kitchen or other inane tasks eventually learn how to perform the chore with nary a twitch of their muscles.
