Aegis and Penetration

Another thread has been talking about requiring Penetration for Aegis of the Heart to be effective, and it got me starting to think... that I had been playing wrong all this years.

How do people play it? Does it indeed need penetration and I have just been playing it completely different than the rules or..?

Cheers

I say no, wards and the aegis are not required to penetrate magic resistance to be effective. However, because of the changes 5th ed has made to magic resistance, I can see the arguement for the other side.

The Aegis doesn't need to penetrate. It is one of the things that defines it as an exception to the rules and not as a standard spell.

Wards (as discussed ad nauseam in this forum) DO require penetration as written. A lot of people do not like that and have house ruled against it, though.

Cheers,

Xavi

Well, I certainly have no wish to renew an old debate. Just put me in the "house rules" camp (I'm firmly there already). :slight_smile:

AS far as I remember, RAW do not state that the aegis does not need to penetrate. Thus, we decided it has to. Not surprisingly this lead to increased cooperation between the magi (everybody learnt WC by now) and to some degree of paranoia against mighty NPCs fearing their Parma might nigate the Aegis' effects.

Where does it say this? It isn't in the description of the spell, and it isn't in the description of Magic Resistance.

Spells originating from outside the Aegis do not need to penetrate (because the caster is not affected by the Aegis), so an Aegis with a low Penetration is still of some use.

In our saga we cannot cast the Aegis with a decent Penetration without Wizard's Communion.

But then, I'm very firmly in the "Wards must penetrate" camp, so perhaps I'm partisan - but I believe we also play by the RAW.

Mark

According to RAW, both Wards and the Aegis do need to Penetrate. I myself do not care for this, and as an SG I house-ruled that they do not need to penetrate. As a player, I simply avoid using Wards. It is an old debate and a commonly encountered house rule.

For a very long detailed debate on this issue, look here:

viewtopic.php?t=156&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

First of all I understand that Wards must Penetrate.
But in the description say literally that the spells of Magi without invitation token or un-participant in the ritual must penetrate a Resistence equal to the LEVEL of ritual for affect from outside, ande must reduce the level form all casting totals when he enter in the aura. For me that is clear. For the proposes about creatures with supernatural Mights score too is simple, they can enter if they have a Might score greater than level, but his penetration is reduced in the same way that the outsiders magi's casting totals.
In the other post i say that this spell is a exception, powerfull yeah, but ever Ritual and ever exeptional, because itsn't really integrated. You can't make a Concentration and personal version of the efect.
For me is clear that the Aegis isn't a Ward and work of his own way.

Wards work different too. The RAW specifically details that the Target of a Ward is not the subject being kept out, rather, the Target is the subject being protected by the Ward spell. As for the Aegis, nothing in the description makes the spell exempt from normal Penetration rules.

But here is the trick. Normal rules as written leads one to believe that Wards and spells such as the Aegis are indeed exempt from normal penetration, specifically in the section that descibes that the target is the one protected. If you look in GotF, Durenmar has a level 100 Aegis and Philipius Niger has Wards enchanted into his Talisman without Penetration. This Wards & Aegis Penetrating thing was an afterthought. They find themselves repeating it again and again in supplaments because the original RAW was unclear.

Just to be clear about what I am saying. I do agree that Wards and the Aegis should not need to Penetrate, and I am stating that the original Rules as Written are murky and unclear about the subject (I won a No-Prize! from David Chart because I demonstrated this). However, having been clarified in later materials, core rules do require Penetration for the Aegis and Wards. It would be illogical to exempt the Aegis and not Wards. If you are gonna house-rule it, I suggest that you require neither one to Penetrate. Otherwise they should be treated the same and both require Penetration, as per normal rules.

And to Yan; no, you haven't been doing it wrong this whole time. Ward & Aegis Penetration was not an issue in earlier editions. This is something new with 5th edition, and wasn't initially made clear in the core rule book.

Then, why isn't written in Erratas section?
That should be in a section of aclaration and all this give sense a make a revised spell guidlines resume...
Other thing about resitance...
In RoP: Magic explay that a magical object victim of the power Dissolution must Penetrate five times the amount of vis invested in the object.
That is a rule for all directs attacks to magical objects?
[/quote]

I disagree with respect to Aegis; I think the "like Parma" mixed with the "required Hermetic Breakthrough" portions of the spell description imply that Aegis, unlike most wards, does not need to penetrate. This argument is (like most that'll come up here) explored in more depth in aforementioned thread.

I am not debating how it should work. I think neither should need to penetrate. But the official line is that the Aegis does indeed need to penetrate. Should it be erratta'ed? Perhaps so, but the oficial line is that, since it make no specific mention of being exempt from normal penetration rules, that it doesn't need to be eratta'ed, just clarified (as it has in later supplaments).

And there are a difference because somebody can difficultly affect from out the Covenant prectected by Aegis and a ward don't leave that, but well is minor in resume...
Well if the penetration is official well, is a thing logic, a little injust, but i would grate you if you Mrak could point me the correctio in a book if has been. In Societates is the correction for wards.

I am actually referring to a quote from David Chart which mentions the Aegis in the same breath as Wards, which is somewhere in the Forums and on the Berklist as well (any help anyone?). But you are right. Societas only mentions wards. If you want to use that to make a convincing argument to your troupe, more power to you. I completly agree with the result you desire.

My house rule is to require the Aegis to penetrate for its "(Every Realm) Might Warding" effect, but not for its less-Hermetic "Magic Damping" effect, which is supposed to affect the "radiant vis" in the area.

I remember this as well, but I also couldn't find it. It could have been on the old Delphi forums. the Delphi forums appear to have disappeared however.

No, it was here and on the Berklist. I remember it being requoted back in last year's Great Ward Debate (which ran up over twenty pages and grew at a rate of a page or two every day for a month!).

The RAW imply that Wards and Aegis needs to penetrates. (because the RAW states that spells needs to penetrates, and both are spells)
As with any rules, you are free to use/interpret/change them as your troupe see fits. This is really a matter of YMMV.

In our saga, both needs to penetrates.
Here is why, in case you find it usefull.

I find wards to be too much powerfull as they stands in the RAW (with penetration required.) I am talking about wards vs fearies, human, infernals, and such.
We made them less powerfull when they are casted on moving targets (T: individual(s)) We interpret that only a circle can make a ward so much powerfull as a RAW wards is.
(So that an arrow fired by a Skeleton will be stoped by a Circle Ward vs invernal, but NOT (In our Saga) by a personnal version of such a ward. A personnal ward would need to be designed to protect against wood to stop an arrow fired by anybody)

Confusion about wards rules seems to be common! and for me, it explain why our troupe played without wards needing to penetrate for about a year after 5th was released.
It worked while we were using wards only on certain "specific" occasion. Now that I am playing a ward specialist, and using wards in many situations, I think my character would enjoy unbalanced power level if he needed not to penetrate with ward spells.

Aegis having not to penetrate was fine for us until we begin thinking about using this spell outside our covenant. This spell is very powerfull, and have many effects.
Dragon' lairs is no more a problem to explore, if only you have some Rego or Vim vis...
Also, if nornal wards needs to penetrate but not the Aegis, this makes normal wards much less powerfull compared to the Aegis.

First time our Merinita walked into a host of opponents while protected by a personal ward against wood and a personal ward against iron we quickly realized to change rules on personal wards as battles are less climatic when you cannot be hurt.
So we house-ruled: Personal wards give you a soak-bonus equal to its magnitude.