Am i wrong, i hope so

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Ok, my magus wishes to create an alarm spell that triggers when his sanctum door opens.

I am using watching ward with the spell below in it set to trigger when the door opens

Alarm!
CrMe15
Spells sounds an alarm in the magus mind for a brief moment.
(Base 3, +4 Arcane connection)

Now for my two queries. Does the spell need the arcane connection at hand when the spell is put in the watching war or when it is activated? If its the first then since my mage is casting the spell he can be an arcane connection to himself, if not then a dab of blood on the surface of the door will do. Which is it?

Second query, will this spell have to penetrate my magus' magic resistance? I reckon it would have to but i'm hoping i'm wrong as my parma is fairly high.

If it does need to penetrate, can anyone think of a method to warn myself of intruders at great range?

2

I'd say when the spell goes off: the arcane connection should be integrated in the Watching Ward.

Either way, requiring your magus to use a drop of his own blood is more thematically fitting than decreeing he's an arcane connection to himself. Which, in my opinion, he isn't. Otherwise, having to penetrate your own parma wouldn't be such a big deal.

It will have to penetrate, since it is cast at a range greater than Personal. But don't forget the penetration bonuses that come with the use of arcane connections.

3

I can certainly see the use for this spell. In terms of the spell as suggested I am in line with Fruny's feedback on it. And having an Arcane Connection it should also be possible to use other factors in the penetration like horoscope, name etc from the penetration table.

Having given it a little thought I think there are other and perhaps preferable ways to reach the same goal. In fact I think that using a Watching Ward is only neccesary if you have to be gone for a long time and/or have little time to prepare your departure. If that was the case, and if you knew the Watching Ward spell you could spontaneous cast the Alarm spell - this would require little time but your Casting Total would probably not leave much for penetrating your own parma. Also, the Watching Ward would only work once - and it would cost you vis to make the ritual in the first place. Vis cost, one use only and an effect that might not get through your parma doesnt seem an attractive solution.

What would the alternatives then be? As you would have to use vis on the WW in any case you might aswell go further and make an enchanted item, which would also cost you vis but would be made to have a continuos effect - so that you'd never have to once more use the WW and more vis. Another solution would be to develop a spell in the lab that you cast your self, and not on yourself but on the door as the target, so that you dont have to beat your own parma. The dilemma then would be the duration - with a regular spell you wouldnt be able to make it last more than a month - unless you make it into a ritual and then a year at most (which again would cast your vis, but at least wouldnt have to penetrate your parma). So the question is for how long you'll be away?

I have tried to make some suggestion on how such a spell might look. I am uncertain about some of the calculations - I will explain below.

Undisturbed It Shall Rest
InHe 30
Range Arc
Duration: Moon
Target: Ind
(Base 2, Arc +4, Moon +3)

Since you cast this spell on the door before setting out, you do not need to penetrate your parma and thus you do not need to factor in penetration. A Casting Total in the 20 would be sufficient. This is the most straightforward way to make this. I was in doubt whether the base should be 2 or 3, but I do think it is reasonable to set it at 2. The guidelines divides the two by "locate" with "generel information". Any comments?

Undisturbed It Shall Rest
InHe 35
Ritual
Range Arc
Duration: Year
Target: Ind
(Base 2, Arc +4, Year +4)

This is the longer duration spell - as a ritual it would cost you vis, but on the other hand you would be sure of its success - there is no parma to penetrate.

Undisturbed It Shall Rest
InHe 10
Range Touch
Duration: Moon
Target: Ind
(Base 2, Touch +1, Moon +3)

This spell is a long strech and it made me start a new thread bc of the questions it made me ask of myself. The RAW says under Range (p. 111) that "A spell that has a continuing effect remains in effect even if the caster moves out of range." This is pretty straightforward concerning most spell bc they often have an effect here and now and what the spell then does is to keep up the effect (the muto'ed soldier stays a pig untill the end of the duration whether the magus keep looking at him - Sight), but what if the effect is to give the magus information and nothing more? In this instance to know whether a door stays closed. If this is possible then the magus could cast the spell on the door at Touch range and travel away and still know whether the door stays closed. On the other hand, spells that involve an ongoing control require you to be within range to control, though the spell will continue to work even if he moves out of range, but.... is the information gained by a intellego spell equivalant to control? How does range affect ongoing intellego spells?

4

Hey Munchkin,

As you might have seen I took interest in a sidenotion to your challenge and startet another thread on this here.

For now it seems that his spells is doable and if so it is a much easier way for you to do your Alarm - and aven at no vis cost. And actually at as low a level that you might be able to cast it spontaneos without spending time in the lab making the spell formulaic.

You might still, given that you invent it in the lab, raise it by a magnitude and make it a ritual with Duration: Year to make it last the longer. I would still only cast you 3 vis to cast.

Another option to increase duration, and if your sanctum accomedates it, to make an engraved circle just within the door to cast a InCo spell on and that way make it last longer. This could pose other problems. What if a non-corpus enters your sanctum? Or what if it is someone with Magic Resistance - then the spell would have to penetrate to detect them. But still feasible and could last longer.

5

Not that Furion doesn't have a wonderful solution, but if you want to preserve the effect:

You might consider tying the "alarm" to an object that is outside your Parma: A bell on a pole, a non-magical animal companion or a charm on a Grog.

I wonder if there couldn't be a fancy effect to allow your own magic to penetrate your Parma, adding a +1 Magnitude bump for such effect. The rational (or magic-cal) would be that as you are tethered to the magic when you cast it from within your Parma, and that this "tether" continues to extend from you object of your spell to yourself.

Another option might be that you build the effect with no penetration, but when it goes off, it "pings" your Parma. Normally you get no information from such a "ping" except "something hit my Parma". Perhaps a spell could be designed to give some information through this "ping", something along the line of "pyong" or "2 pings".

Finially if you're using the "Parma Folds" from True Lineages, there could be a Fold that allows your own spells to ignore your Magic Resistance, or give you information reguarding spells that hit your Parma.

6

I'm liking the double ping solution. I can just put 2 identical wards on the door and when i get a double ping on my parma, i know its the door. Magic.

7

So many roads that all lead to Rome! Wonderful.

Your ping solution as is would still need a Watching Ward and thus require a vis expenture. If that is not a factor, the more power to you!

8

The ward is to guard our vis stores so i don't see it going off that often (hopefully). Given that last session one of the PC's malicious parens looted the stores to the tune of 300 odd pawns of vis, there isn't much to steal anymore anyway.

Since its not going to go off too often i don't mind splashing out the vis a little.

9

Has this vile , thieving curmudgeon , had a Wizards War declared on them? :open_mouth:

10

Especially if you dont have anything to move in and out! :smiling_imp:

Well - our covenant experienced a similar atrocity, though from an apprentice about to gauntles we had nurtured ourself at our very own bosom of learning!! There might be grounds for helping each others - we are located in Stonehenge in Shropshire bordering on Wales - and the culprit still roams unchecked. Together we might bring them both to justice? And each to their well-deserved final dooms!! :imp:

11

Ah ha! Well our Covenant shares your Tribunal, but we are located on the Isle of Wight, so hopefully the water will keep the theives on the mainland. When in doubt, blame Blackthorn!

12

If we don't run him into those very waters! And other than that Blackthorn is a very good target for blame. Especially since two of our sodales by accident rescued and at the same time badly aggrevated a member of Blackthorn, so I guess my players will have to but heads with Blackthorn at some point.

13

At almost exactly the same time he was stealing our vis, we were at Tribunal getting him cast out of the order for previous crimes.

Oh the irony.