Ok as a familiar bond power wouldn't it make more sense to do a constant effect? It's only one level higher and as a bond power it doesn't cause warping. My take is that you run a greater risk getting hurt by forgetting to activate the power than you do by not having back up uses for when it is dispelled. Also, Janus knows a pretty powerful ignem ward from back when the dragon concern was happening so if the bond power is dispelled, he can use that as a back up.
A small revision. The ward was intended to protect Proserpinus, which means Janus must activate it. It is now R:Per. The edit made it D:Conc with the Bond maintaining concentration. And because it means nothing for vis cost, and Janus has plenty Lab total it has a ridiculous 24 uses per day.
I've never done must familiar effect designs - but can an effect affect both the magus? I mean, one at a time, by making it R:Touch?
Oh, and I have a conundrum about Range (capital "R) of spells with long durations. The recipient of the spell only needs to be at the spell's Range when it is cast, right? No matter how long it lasts?
Even if it is an Intellego spell giving ongoing information about the target?
I'm toying with the idea of a spell to monitor the health and well-being of Redcaps:
The rules are a bit fuzzy about how the caster of an Intellego spell actually recieves the information, so IMHO this gives a good deal of flexibility into spell design.
Is that worth the Warping it would impose if kept up constantly? After all, a Redcap may be accumulating a WP/year as it is with a LR. Doubling that could be troublesome.
Or would it only be a temporary thing when they were on dangerous missions?
All of the example enchantments on page 105 are at range touch, just to effect the magus or the familiar. Apparently the bond is not the caster or familiar and therefore it can't use range personal.
To target both the magus and the familiar at the same time I'd use range touch target group.
That's my interpretation. Yet it seems odd to have information passing to the magus without any sort of pathway (for lack of a better term) for it to travel on. I'm eager to read people's takes on the issue.
This seems similar to the information given by the base 4 spell Revealed Flaws in Mortal Flesh or at most the base 5 spell Physician's Eye. I don't think it requires base 10
Thank you for lurking. Although I see it as 'participating' instead.
Yes, Redcaps are magi, so this spell is a form of scrying. It is not intended be used without their explicit consent. But Janus can't even imagine a situation where a Redcap wouldn't want his help.
Effects in Familiar bonds require at least R:Touch, that makes sense. Janus still does not go for T:Group, he lives with the fact that that both he and Proserpinus can't activate at the same time:
As for the spell to monitor the health of Redcaps I think I'll keep it at base 10, because I want a somewhat fancy effect. Also, it'll be too easy otherwise, even with Janus' Deficiency. And I just found a way to hack it.
Regarding whether an information gathering spell should work if the target goes away from the caster...I've put some limitations and requirements into the design. Although the rules IIRC don't touch upon this in any way:
Janus neds to work a bit for this spell, due to his Defiency.
He has studied a bit for this
He has another apprentice (who is assumed to be at the end of his or her apprenticeship, for a good lab bonus)
He arranges for this single season to have six of his grand-grand-sires present in the lab, for the "Person" Free Lab Virtue (with a corresponding -6 Safety!)
Yep, and It's actually more clear than I remember:
So from this, the aforementioned effect is ok.
But also:
But there is no mention of who controls it, if the effect affects both. and by this one could infer that is must be either the one or the other. And this was the part I remembered. However the first quote (4th point) quite clearly says both can be affected. And I think that it intends to limit familiar enchantments, specificlly excluding other effects like a mouse familiar shooting PoFs.
It says the familiar, the magus, or both. I'd say that to target both you'd need to have an effect with the "Group" target or something of the like.
Your effect can target either the familiar or the magus. This seems inconsistent with the description of both the shared senses power and the mental communication power.
It looks to me like bond effects can target the magus, the familiar, or both (that is both at once). They can't be designed to target either the magus or the familiar depending upon choice.
I’m not sure if the mistake lies in the rules or if the example effects are just suboptimally designed.
But it does make sense balance wise that a Touch effect is designed to work on either the maga or the familiar. And a Group effect could work on both at the same time. But not anyone else
In which case the fire ward in the bond is for Proserpinus alone. Janus has a slightly lesser ward for himself, from that incident with the dragon
Another thing:
I'm looking into the design of some MuAn spells to give the Redcaps' horses extra abilities, so things like Eyes of the Cat etc.
I'm writing up:
a) Does it even need a Terram req? The hooved need not be actual iron, and I'd prefer if it didn't cost a magnitude.
b) T: Part seems in order here. But then again, why doesn't 'Eyes of the Cat' need that?
I also think that target individual is appropriate. You're changing the hooves on the entire horse, not just the hooves on part of the horse.
Edit: Yes I realize that this line of reasoning could be twisted to "I turn all of the hearts in the target to stone, not just the hearts in part of the target". But it does seem to match with eyes of the bat, eyes of the hawk, gift of the bear's fortitude and other spells.
T: Part Co spells: Disguise of the New Visage, Arm of the Infant
The rest of them are T: Ind. (Except InCo "Sight of the True Form", Intellego can be a special case, and two Boundary Rituals)
Why?
Why is Eyes of the Cat T: Ind? Why Curse of the Unruly Tongue, why Spasms of the Uncontrolled hand?
Anyway, the two T: Part spells may be the ones designed wrong, so we'll the rest of them as Ind. Although it does seem the very thing for T: Part to cover.
Okay increased Soak for a horse...By analogy from Corpus it is Base 15 for +3.
Base 15 for Mu An gives a horse scaly, armoured skin. But how much Soak is this? This sounds dragon-y and much higher.
So is it more natural for an animal to have armoured skin than a human? I’d say yes. So perhaps Soak +3 for a house is a lower base?
Janus can easily invent a base 15 spell, but he does not want an unnatural look for the horse so lower Soak is desirable. And with lower base he might pull the spell off in same season as the other low level ones.
I've a thought on the use of target part versus individual.
The distinction I'm favoring is "is it reasonable to change the entire body in this way?"
Turning to stone: It is reasonable to turn the entire body to stone ergo changing the target's heart or hands to stone is target part.
Changing the target's eyes with Muto Corpus to give better vision (eyes of the hawk/cat): It is not sensible to turn the entire body to see better so these spells can be target individual.
Changing into a wolf: You can change entirely into a wolf, therefore giving a target a wolf's nose and olfactory sense acuity is target part.
Arm of the infant: It does make sense to change the entire person into an infant so target part
Curse of the Unruly Tongue: It does not make sense for the entire body to stutter and slur so target individual (getting a bit stretched here)
Spasms of the Uncontrolled hand: It does make sense for the entire body to spasm so target individual... yet it's target part in the book. Drat!
Changing the hoofs of a horse to have more iron like properties: It's more of a grey area here but I'm inclined to say that it does not make sense give an entire horse properties related to the hardness of iron and therefore it can be a target individual spell.
Spasms of the Uncontrollable Hand is base 2 (lose control af a body part) and Despair of the Quivering Manacles is base 4 (control large scale movements). So something in the guidelines themselves delve into how much of the body is affected.
But this is counter productive. A single art is easier to affect than a whole body in guidelines. But in parameters Part is harder than Ind (the whole).
If the entire horse gets the hardness of iron it would be hard pressed to move. It should get Soak bonus but that’s anther thing. But the hooves ( or teeth for that matter) are not moving parts they are contact surfaces for body parts.
But a clean up of guidelines would be a priority of mine for an ArM update. I could see a v5,5 but don’t see a need for such great changes that a v6 is needed. Meanwhile i’ll work with what I’ve got.