Hi,
blink I like this. Finesse to throw a stone? Resisted. Magically tampered sword? Resisted. Falling damage onto a magically created bridge? Resisted. InIm? Not resisted--the spell isn't targetting you. 
Anyway,
Ken
Entirely? So if I want to cast Wings of the Soaring Wind on myself, I have to penetrate the Magic Resistance of every creature in Mythic Europe? 
I think this would just change the debate to "what counts as targeting someone?". Should Ball of Abysmal Flame be resisted? The spell is CrIg; it creates fire. The target isn't the person who gets burned by the fire, it's the fire. Should Blade of the Virulent Flame be resisted? The sword is the target, not the magus.
Spell-list games, like D&D, can just state for each spell whether or not it is resisted. (3e did, 4e handles things a bit differently and, AFAIR, doesn't really have magic resistance at all.) ArM needs a general rule, and this turns out to be a really, really hard problem.
I wasn't serious. But keeping with the folly, every spell would be resisted by a critter with MR. So the Wings example wouldn't come up unless the air you're using somehow has MR. Same with the sword. It would be easy to end silly debates by saying: "Does X have Magic Resistance? Yes? OK, it's resisted. No? OK, the effect occurs."
Just sayin'.
Hi,
This feature already exists with various Intellego spells. Go up to a high place and cast a Vision spell, and every spirit gets to resist....
Anyway,
Ken
But a sword under Edge of the Razor would be resisted, right?
Incoming: massive headache 
Well, this is mostly the case in 5th: if there's magic on a thing (be it a rego spell, a muto spell, or something created by magic), it is resisted.
But this brings up the pink dot: even a low level muto spell on your opponent's sword makes it into a "magical" object (see edge of the razor above: Even by your rule, it is transformed, and thus resisted.
Yes, this is a quagmire T-T
Hi,
And here's a plug for my deliciously deviant MR rules from way back, in which magical acts are resisted but not magical effects. It's somewhere online here. 
Anyway,
Ken
Not in our house rules. BTW, as I said in another post, I recently looked at the house rules our SG posted on our covenant website (flagrant plug alert!: http://www.orderofhermes.com ) and noticed our main SG (aka "God") has changed some of them from previous rulings, and has since contradicted himself as I've brought this very discussion up at our last couple sessions. So Ray has some 'splaining to do or our headache will get worse.
We've never let Edge of the Razor be resisted for obvious reasons (it's a cheat), and also since it's a Ritual with Perm. duration the blade in question is not enchanted, it has had its essential nature changed. It has no active magic on it, will not glow or smell or tinkle under an InVi spell, it is now a VERY sharp blade, but not magical. If it was temporary and the sharpness an effect of an active magic the best a mage could hope for would be to resist the spell and thus not suffer the +1 damage. Successful resistance would NOT stop the blade from striking.
In our long history of playing several players have created spells for things like Creo Sword, or Creo Staff (for use with Piercing Shaft..) and these are NOT resisted either. If you make a CrTe (Req: Re) that "creates a javelin of steel that then flies to a target doing +X damage" it is resisted; like BoAF and PoF these are magically created media that target a magus in the same casting (the same spell does both). Piercing Shaft (MuHe, Req: Re) is NOT resisted because it doesn't create AND fling an object, it merely alters a natural object and flings it.
I realize this seems contradictory to what I have said earlier, but like I said I'm going to have a good long talk with our SG about this and get it straightened out.
It is a vat of worms indeed. I'm starting to think that parmae should not resist a Mu-transformed object at all, only Mu spells that target the maga. I would rather be vulnerable to Blade of Virulent Flame (or whatever), which is at least a legitimate combat spell, than allow some ninnies to get around their combat deficiencies by casting little cantrips on all my grogs' swords.
I don't remember 4th Ed, but in 5th, it is not: It is using Muto to give a sword a supernaturally sharp edge for Sun Duration.
You thus see the problem: if it is resisted, how can one leave a sharp edge behind? This might work for a flaming sword, but there, it's not something surrounding a sword, it's the sword itself that's changed.
This is confusing.
How can a Creoed sword not be resisted, while a Creoed Javelin or fire would be??? Either magical creations are resisted, or they aren't, no?
As per Piercing Shaft, 5ed has 2 approaches of this:
- Either you use magic to guide something all the way to a target, in which case it can't miss, but the magical force animating it is resisted
- Or you use magic to project something with force, letting it go, in which case it can miss, but can't be resisted, as it is no longer propelled by magic.
I was thinking this might actually work, and then, I thought about Muto-ing the air around someone into fire, or the earth under them into acid 
In neither of these case would the magus be targeted directly, so he couldnt resits.
Parma Magica. Creator of Headaches since its introduction Better minds than mine have tried to find a perfect solution, and failed. The current rules are probably the more coherent ever designed, but at the cost of Pink Dot
I think i have to disagree. Basically, if you can make the sword itself have the edge, then its not supernaturally sharp... Ok i know thats more than a little iffy, but hopefully you understand what i mean.
:mrgreen:
Oh yes indeed!!!
Ill say it again, there probably isnt a perfect definition possible, so make sure you always have a decent SG to interfere when someone gets too creative for your normal rules to work.
Well, it is muto, not rego. Or you have this muto-ed item not be resisted, while others (earth into chlorydric acid) are?
This is more "giving it the power to cut through anything" than actually making it better crafted with Rego.
In fact, a "perfect" sword forged through Rego craft magic would not be resisted, as it'd be mundane.
I understand what you're trying to say, but it seems to me like toying with words (I don't mean to be rude here) in order to make visually distubing and conceptually annoying things fit rather than actually finding a perfect (and probably non-existent) solution. If I make the blade hot as if coming from the forge, it is not supernaturally hot. Thus, it isn't resisted?
On this point, I think the RAW works logically, although I sure don't like the idea of a sword with edge of the razor being blocked by the parma. Although, with a shift in vision, I can see the sword as suffused with a string of magical energy, which is blocked by the parma. Sword and energies being linked, one cannot go where the others can't.
The Mutoed part is resisted, but not necessarily the item itself. Read down how we do it with a little help of Vim as prerequisite.
And yes that takes us back to the fire made turnip, with the opposite answer... :mrgreen:
As said, SG-handled is totally better.
Yeah, but this part, we handle it something like where the "magic edge" is added onto the normal edge, and while the magic edge is resisted, the normal isnt. Where the "magic edge" acts somewhat like an aura at the same size as the object. Otherwise the sword itself would also bounce. Ie., you add a magic edge at the edge of the edge of the sword.
As i said, very iffy. But we try to get rid of arbitrary as far as is possible, which isnt exactly easy.
Correct. If you heat it, then use it, totally not resisted. If you put an active heat spell in the sword, sword is resisted, if you put a spell that, like the Burning blade one creates heat indirectly, the Burning blade part is resisted but the sword itself including the secondary heat isnt(the spell part isnt within the sword).
Totally agreed, which is why we separated the concept of making the "perfect natural edge" and the above "magic edge". The magic edge version is superior in damage but gets blocked by parma, and if it was made as part of the sword, the sword itself gets blocked as well, adding the Vim requisite version means parma still blocks the magic edge, but not the sword itself.
Meanwhile, using the "mundane" muto spell will sharpen up the sword half as much, but wont make it bounce on the parma(yes i know its an exception), originally only muto spells made permament avoided the parma bounce, but we included the exception as well later.
BTW, permanent Muto is cast like RAW permanent Creo except +4 magnitudes.
Permanent Creo is the same except using twice as much Vis.
Clown´s parma for any screwups by me and my memory of the houseversion parma rules.
That is, if i screwed it up, im going to get laughed at really seriously. :mrgreen:
While it could be somewhat conceivable with fire surrounding a sword, this is a changed/enchanted sword. The only way to have this is to have Parma cancel magic, which creates its whole load of problems.
Having this being decided by SG fiat instead of basic rules creates a system that, IMO, lacks credibility, coherence and unity. Why are some things stopped and others not? Because parma is intelligent? This is even worse if your parma cancels or even suspends magic for some things (the sword) and doesn't for others (the turnip). I don't want this kind of thing, although YMMV, and that's why 5th Ed does no difference between these.
I'd prefer a system where enchanted swords were more efficient vs magical creatures and all, but I prefer even more a simple and coherent system to one that varies depending on who casts what on whom .
Adding a perfect magic edge would be creo, not muto . You don't create something, you're Mutoing Metal (and not even mutoing it into something else). Also, the spell doesn't target a Part of the sword, but the entire item.
How to put it? If you put on an armor (Iron Man? ) and put yourself into a magnetic field, you may not be attracted by it, but, by wearing the armor, you'll get stuck nonetheless. Even with a T: Part MuTe spell (and even with an Aura), this'd be the same thing: Unless the parma cancels magic, you couldn't have the parma stop the edge and not the sword.
I'm not sure I understand you.
Say, 2 Cr(Re)Ig spell.
One creates an fire around a sword, not burning the caster. The fire would be resisted, not the spell?
The other just makes the blade red-hot, and wouldn't be resisted because it's just the blade being hot?????
Hum... Still don't like the Mutoed sword being blocked by parma for the additionnal damage only. I've said enough why 
To get more coherent with current guidelines, I'd suggest you at least having the inferior, mundane sharpening be a part of Rego magic. Even within pure RAW, you could get away with this IMO for, say, a +1 bonus.
Suppose I place creo imaginem opaque image of a bag over the target magi's head, is the magic of the image resisted but the image is still there?
How does that work?
Imo it would depend on how the spell is designed. Does the spell 'attach' itself to the victim or is it free-floating?
If it is 'Curse of the Hoody' which is cast on the body of the victim and acts to create an image over his head- which will automatically moves with the victim - then it is resisted. The spell would simply fail.
If it is just an image which is created about the region his head is in at the time of casting - no resistance. This latter spell would need to be controlled by the caster to move with the victim.
That's certainly current rules,would they be unchanged if we start separating magicness from items. I suppose using a rego spell the image of another object from it's current location to over the eyes of the target is a better example in that the image is then not a magical image.
The image via Creo or Rego cannot enter his body, but his sight can still be blocked. A Rego spell would either need active control or would need to be 'attached' to the victim - thus resistable. I cannot see how how magic effects being suppressed (if resisted) while within a magus's body is a problem. I think I may be missing the point you the making...
And the pink dot defense is better you mean?
The basic idea is that any active magic doesnt get through.
Spice up a weapon with a permanent muto spell and it can be quite effective, because the change has then been made permanent so even though the effect is there, the weapon does not have active magic within it. So under our style of rules, a "magic sword" can be very good even without being actively so.
But i agree that i would still like a magic weapon to be an advantage overall.
The spell is handled as mutoing the "outside" of the edge. All of it... :mrgreen:
Nope, never that.
The fire is an active magic and would be resisted, as long as its not a part of the sword itself, the sword isnt resisted. Nor is any indirectly gained heat in the blade resisted.
If the spell actively and directly heats the blade, it makes the blade become resisted. If its a momentary spell that just heats up the blade and then lets it cool off normally, then yup its not resisted because after the moment the spell heats it up, its only normal heat and no active spell within the blade.
Well, by raw, all such are blocked by parma. In our version the "perfect natural edge" isnt blocked at all and the version with the Vim requisite only has the extra magic damage resisted, not the sword itself. So with 2 out of 3 version the sword will still cut through a parma.
Whyever would we want that?
We allow that as well...
:mrgreen:
O-ok... That one i have to think about if you want an answer regarding our HR...
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Mmm in that case i think it would be like RAW, if you aim the image "around" the head, you have to "hit" but isnt resisted, if the spell is aimed directly at the magi its resisted.
Oh, i see Aslan2 already said the same thing...
OWWWWWWW, my head! The pain!!!
So I have no idea if this helps at all, or just cause more migraines, but after considerable discussion w/the troupe last night we decided that our HR as printed are BOTH mostly correct (for us) and need refreshing. As far as mutoed objects go, the editions and interpretations of MR we've been using (all pre-5th, mind you) don't include muto unless the Mu spell affects the target directly. In 3rd ed the Piercing Shaft of Wood is not resisted but it is a MuHe with a Re req. Hands of the Grasping Earth (MuTe)=not resisted. In the case of the MuAu/Ig (transform air around the maga into fire) it would only be resisted if the spell transformed the air directly around the mage; if you did this to be unresisted you'd need to target the air a bit away from the mage so as not to hit their parma, in which case you wouldn't do much damage, it would be a very high-level spell (by our way of thinking I'd say at least 30-35th Lvl), and would require a very high Finesse roll for such a tricky maneuver. If you could accomplish all that your reward would be a moderately damaging, unresisted fire. Probably easier to just transform the grass under his feet into snakes.
Many of these examples also beg the question: who in Mythic Europe would go to such lengths anyway?! My Flambeau magus accepts without complaint that his entire arsenal is resisted by parmae. The solution is obvious, at least to him: study your core Arts, study vis when you exhaust your tomes, put xp into Penetration at every opportunity, pick a good talisman, master your strikeout pitches, and be frugal with "tactically vital" types of vis. I may be wrong in this suspicion, but I suspect the pink dot thing was thought up by a player who made an Imagonem specialist, then at some point he/she realized Imagonem was of limited use in a melee--or rather, they lacked the creativity to come up with Im spells that could protect them like a ReTe or a PeTe. Instead of creating an illusion of an axe-wielding barbarian that roars and charges at a target (as one player I know did in a past campaign), thus distracting the sword-wielding enemy, or putting up an illusionary barrier to buy a round or two, and instead of expanding his Arts to something beyond Im, he/she devised this "loophole" in the hopes of making Im all-powerful.
More than SG armwaving I advocate for players to not try to bend and "lawyer" the rules to expand the power of their chosen specialty. There are legitimate spells that protect magi from mundane swords using the other 4 Techniques besides Rego. Rusted Decay of Tenscore Years comes to mind, as does any ReTe to deflect metal objects away from you. My very first ArM PC was a Mu specialist, a faerie blooded, small, waify little dryad-girl, who was Vulnerable to Iron and extremely vulnerable to mundane attacks as such. Rather than whine that she was too vulnerable she studied and studied and eventually invented a ReTe spell that kept all metal objects away from her. Problem solved, no cheating.
Just sayin'.
No, I don't think that's right. I think the actual "pink dot" is entirely arbitrary, which is what proves the point. You could use any arbitrarily low spell with zero penetration because Parma protects against any and all magic that lacks the potency to breach that Parma. Once you realise that any spell with penetration lower than your Parma is resisted, well it's crying out for the purest possible example, which is where the absurd dot comes from. It's that absurdity, of adding a tiny harmless pink dot to the blade, that shows the strength of Parma Magica (and Might Resistance I think) under fifth edition.
And it's to the example's credit that so many years after fifth edition came out we're still sacrificing hours of discussion to it. It's a meme of Diedne proportions!
I usually try to stay away from these pink dot discussions because I've not seen a house rule yet that's better than the rule presented under fifth edition. Do I think there's a better way for Parma and Might Resistance to work? Of course. I just don't think we're going to see it during the lifetime of fifth edition. To find something better would take, in my opinion, a concerted effort to strip penetration and resistance down to the bare essentials and work it all back up again.
I have my ideas on how I'd tackle it, but they rely on, as I say, stipping things down and rebuilding. Maybe one day...