A novice's basic rules question

The subject line should make it clear that I feel stupid asking this question, so without digging myself into a deeper hole let me just ask it.

Wards. They are listed in the guidelines as (touch, ring, circle). The section on wards says you can adjust this to (personal, moon, individual) and still have the same effective power of the ward.

Question: can I adjust a ward to (personal, sun, individual) to get +5 to the base power of the ward (i.e. repel creatures with magic might less than 5 plus the ward's base)?

I think it should work that way. However, my hesitation is that maybe it is impossible to lower the parameters for the same reason that we can't go any lower than the guidelines for non-wards (personal, momentary, individual).

Yes. Don't forget that wards need to penetrate.

  • ducks to avoid the Pila of Fire that are sure to be hurled his way *

(anomynously chuck a PoF in that general direction)
:laughing:

Somewhere I believe the Rules specifically mentions that this is possible with Wards. (Try the pages immediately before the spell descriptions, in a part about Rings or Wards or something.)

Make that "Don't forget that, by a strict reading of the Rules as Written, many players rule that wards need to penetrate", and there's no need to duck.

Others disagree, or find it too awkward to enforce. There are rules that are clear in canon and universally accepted - this is not one of them.

It may be easiest to say that Parma and Aegis are the only hermetic wards that exist.

And why would that be better?

Magical wards are a common feature of legends and mage stories. Removing them would make the game poorer, not better. remember than when rules and reality do not go well together the problem is in the rules, not in the game's reality

Xavi

Removing the Fugu course makes a meal of 18 courses poorer, but it removes a lot of potential for an unhappy ending.

Wards are quite an integral part of the magic of a lot of stories. Removing them is removing 9 dishes, not 1 out of 18. Otherwise the archetypical demon trapped in a circle, the ward that keeps the spirits at bay and the ward that keeps the skeletons from leaving the cave will all be removed.

As well as the archetypical wards for summoned beings. I can0t see why removing them would solve anything and certainly would make a lot of magic/mage stories unplayable in the ars setting.

Xavi

depends on how much you like fish :smiley:

Okay, that answers my question, thanks. But now I am confused about penetrating wards. I always thought that warding off a magical thing was essentially creating something like magic resistance, so that it's not a question of you being able to penetrate a thing's resistance, but a question of it penetrating the ward's.

The ward against humans has base 15 but you need to beat a mage's resistance in addition to this to ward him off. So all you need to do is beat their resistance and you can ward them off like any other human.

I can see why, for warding magical creatures, you need more power to stop a unicorn than a horse. But for stopping such a magical creature, isn't the extra power you put into a ward there just to get through its resistance and stop it like any other animal? If that's true, why would you need even more penetration?

I have to totally side with Xavi here. The fish analogy doesn't "float" :laughing:

Wards are an essential part of magical myths, be they circles or amulets or other forms pf spells/enchantments. The disagreement on wards is not equivilent to Fugu. The reason why is because everything works out in the end if everyone plays by the same rules. Yes, I have my Ward preference and my little house rule. But I will play the standard RAW rule, no arguments. In fact, that is the way we are playing over in Novus Mane. That's fine. Now when it comes to HR's that are more restrictive than RAW (no wards at all, no Penetration or Multicasting Mastery, etceteras), that's when I start to chaff.

The topic of wards, what the rules say about them, and what the rules imply about them, has been discussed several times on this board, and tends to involve strong feelings on conflicting sides, so you're practically asking for this thread to get hijacked. :wink:

I would point you at:

Which is one of the more recent discussions, having started with Aegis specifically before moving on to wards in general.