while thinking about offensive options for a Terram magus I came up with a potentially abusively powerful spell and would like to know if there are any mistakes in my calculation/reasoning.
Prison of Stone (CreTe 25 – Base 3, +2 Voice, +2 Sun, +2 size)
R: Voice, D: Sun
This spell creates 100 cubic paces of granite (7x7x2) which will enclose all the persons in the area effected by the spell (aimed). Magic or mining equipment is needed to free the persons from this prison. If the prisoners can not be freed in 2 diameters they will suffocate (maybe 1 additional diameter for persons protected by Parma Magica due to some air between themselves and the stone).
This spells seems very powerful to me for a lvl25 spell since it circumvents Parma Magica and unless the mage knows a appropriate “destroy stone†spell or is really good at PeTe he is pretty much in trouble. No gestures and quite/no voice will not be very helpful, too. CreAu might help to survive till the spell wears off, but being encased in stone and suffocating does sound stressful to me.
The enclosure trick... rather well known, and somewhat problematic.
I don't think you really missed anything. But the effectiveness of this spell is highly dependent on your troupe, not just the guidelines.
First, how does the Parma relate to this spell? If you dropped a stone block on a protected magus, it would be shunted aside. The troupe can decide a protected magus shunts the created cube aside, too, or that the spell simply fails as its unable to be created as you intended it to due to the magus' parma. Or it may be that a sphere-like hole is created in the block, where the parma stops the spell from creating the stone, allowing the magus full movement and voice. (Nearly any magus can then escape it by some means; all you've done is delayed him for a round or so, and provided him protection from most spells while he's in the block too.)
Secondly, the guidelines are only that - guidelines. The troupe should feel free to bump up spells they feel are too poweful for their level.
Personally, I would increase the spell level and allow the imprisoned magus a sphere of air to work within.
I'd increase the difficulty for the unusual shape (making it something like creating a gothic arch, which is not the same as just making a rock), and I'd require a relatively high Aiming/Finesse roll to drop it square around a group. I might also bump it up a magnitude for granite as opposed to sandstone/limestone, but the RAW doesn't make that distinction, so I won't try to justify that on those grounds.
Then, I'd also keep in mind that lack of air is a deprivation roll which people with high stamina and magi with high Auram can make for several rounds.
suffocation
I assume a pace is a meter (or a bit more than a yard).
7m longx7m broad x2m high, that is a decent sized class room. It seems unlikely that somebody might suffocate in a such a room - school is not that fatal and their are lots of people in a room for a long time.
Plus creating oxygen is no problem for a maga.
usability
tis spell is useless indoors
this spell is only somewhat useful outdoors and potentially deadly for the attacker. If I were attacked in this way I'd cast "See through stone" and could then use sight range spells while being totally protected by the stone barrier (because someone inside cannot be seen!!! and aimed spells are useless against this wonderful protection).
There is no oxygen in Mythic Europe.
Come to think of it, I'm not sure closed rooms suffocate you in Mythic Europe. I could certainly see the SG ruling confined spaces do not. It's bad air that is poisonous, water and other non-air that is suffocating.
I just got a vision of a combat-magus erecting stone-blocks for protection around himself in battle...
thx for the answers, I like the idea about the unusual shape thus adding +1 to the spell.
Concerning the suffocation: This spell will not create a room with granite walls, but a solid block of stone with the mentioned size
And creating air is very much a problem for most magi if they are not able to use gestures since their arms are immobilized in stone. Which will make any other spells fairly hard, too, unless mastered or the mage being able to cast without gestures.
And while I like the idea of a larger sphere around the affected magus I think that this violates what is written in some rulebooks which imply that the parma will only cover a very small range around the mage.
Basically this would make it a ReTe 30 spell which still feels too powerful, but anything different looks too much like "bending the rules" to me.
I am still open to other/additional suggestions, but have at least an plausible idea for uping the level of the spell.
You obviously breath air, that much is obvious. That the air you breath out is somewhat missing the ingredient you actually take in in your breath so that if you don't fresh air you'll crank down its level until you will suffocate - that's not so clear, and I'm not sure if it was known.
I agree with you: The concept of oxygen and suffocation is not understood in Mystic Europe. Indeed, there are many stories of people who travell to the bottom of the sea in a glass vessel.
So I would rule like this: The people trapped in a magical substance will come out healthy once the substance disappears. This is similar to some stories of people who were caught in ice and come out alive once it melted. If this strikes you too unreal, maybe you might restrict the survival to all those with MR.
Yes, I very much like the idea of only killing the persons without MR since those are completely encased in stone while magi/people with MR have a very small amount of space around them, thus being able to breath.
Basically this transforms a lvl25/30 mage killer into a much more reasonable, but still fairly powerful mage disabler + non-mage killer.
As I understand it, you can't just cast a spell into an area and have the natural limits of the situation define the effect of the spell, you have to understand and define those limitations when you cast the spell. If you wanted a spell to be so closely around someone that it kept them from being able to move one way or the other, that would seem to involve knowing exactly where people were and were not. Which is either some sort of horribly difficult Finese roll, or some increase in the level for complexity.
