No quarrel there, just a general wondering. Where it becomes rather hairy is if we continue on to the Target: Room or Structure. A magus approaches the outer wall of a room and touches it, for his Touch spell to work, and intends to cast a momentary Ignem spell to burn, or maybe freeze, the people in that room. This question is also brought on by my own question in this thread. Do ignem still work the same way with Room or Structure targets? How could I target all the people in this room with Ignem without including the Form of the targets, even if it is a spell of a different form? Is it all possible?
I know this is a special application of Ignem, but it is the cause of my wonder.
Well, first of all because that was the response I seemed to get in the old thread of mine, that it wasn't possible to do so directly. That it might have to be combined with a PeForm.
I am not convinced of anything in this regard - only a bit confused - and very curious, so any argumented views are very welcome.
If this is a Creo Ignem effect, it cannot have a Target of Room or Structure. Creo spells that create something (like fire) can only have Individual or Group targets, correct? (ArM5, pg 113)
I confess, I'm a bit puzzled by the Pe(Cr)An(Ig) suggestion in that thread. Erik, can you comment?
Furion, you're trying to destroy (or damage) a structure (or the people in it) with CrIg, correct? I think there should be several ways to do this, but the limitations you've noted on Creo targets make some of them a bit problematic.
With regard to "Targets and Creo," Creo spells can only have Individual or Group target if they create something. In the present case, I think it's kind of ambiguous as to whether any given fire can really be considered a "thing created." The fire in a Pilum of Fire might be, but what about the fire resulting from a CrIg 5 spont to ignite a parchment? (i.e. Would you describe that as creating a small fire on the parchment, or creating enough heat in the parchment to cause it to ignite? If the latter, is heat a "thing" or a "property?" And what did Aquinas and Aristotle think?) This is the kind of stuff that journals of analytic philosophy publish articles on, so I'm not inclined to get hung up on the ontology of fire. The point of these ramblings is that I'd hand-wave my way through the "Targets and Creo" section on a case-by-case basis when it comes to CrIg spells.
If you're simply trying to set the enter building on fire, I would use the CrIg 10 base ("Ignite something barely flammable") with a Structure target. This doesn't seem to me to be creating a fire as much as it does creating lot of heat, and I don't think heat is a "thing."
You might be able to do fire damage to every person within a structure (essentially casting Pilum simultaneously on everyone inside) by using a Group target with appropriate size modifiers. I would think the individuals in a structure would constitute a well defined group, though perhaps only if you had appropriate scrying capabilities to observe all of them at time of casting.
Filling every square inch of a structure with fire is the most difficult option, but I think it's the kind of thing a magus ought to be able to do. One option, which I'd probably want to think about a bit more before I introduced into my own game, is just to let a magus construct one big fire ball via an Individual target with several additional magnitudes to account for size. I would rule that the Range of the spell to be the distance from the caster to the center of the fire ball and would simply house rule that the resulting fire ball would conform to the shape of whatever structure encompassed it. For extra drama, you can have all that excess fire come shooting out of the structures doorways and windows - which might be quite something if ground zero was the bottom of the Calebais central shaft.
Well, at this point it is more of a general discusion since the Calebais-situation has already been resoluted - I went for a PeIg spell to deep freeze the entire covenant interior with a spell inspired by Winter's Icy Grip. This was foremost to sidestep the Creo incompatibility with the Target: Structure. And because the whole area was affected and no discrimination in targets applied I needed not worry about targeting the hrools directly and whether that would need an Animal requisite or not. On a sidenote this complete and utter cooling of the covenant had some interesting side effects - both in terms of description, theme and plot.
But I still cant help wondering about this curious Form - when it comes to heat that is, or the lack of, because heat is everywhere, in all things, no matter their Forms. Creating fire and using this as a medium is quite straightforward, but what if simply heating something enough to damage it without actually have it break into flames. The human body for one thing could easily be killed by heat without ever coming near to burning. I see how Creo cannot be used with Room or Structure, the only challenge would be that it might be harder to get in Range with a Group then with a Room - at least more difficult to do so in unnoticed. I do agree that even though the rules do not leave this as an option, CrIg with Target: Room there might be situations where you might have to consider it - in that light I like your case-by-case examples, and I would propably personally stick to the Target: Individual solution and then boost the size sevaral times - not unlike what was being discussed in another thread recently.
Having acknowledges that Creo cant be used on the Targets (Room, Structure amd Boundary), what about the other Techniques. How do you, if using any of these Targets, descriminitate between the targets in said room? If not by using a Requisite. What if I in the mentioned example would have wanted to only freeze and kill the hrools in the covenant, and leave everything else untouched by the frost?
Hehe, well since I personally have the unusual combined job description as a lt. firefighter and as instructur at the fire academy while at the same time studying at university and actually studying history with an emphasize on medieval history... I am sure I could have "blast" discussing this!