Fan Grimoire: Spells to grant magical perception

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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I decided to post here the discussion to try to solve this problem. It is just easier than in the Google doc. I try to summarize the situation below.

Problem: how to grant magical senses to a person or a group of person ?

Per rule (p114): "It is possible to grant... by using MuMe."
However, I could not find a single canon example in the core or in any extension, nor any guidelines in Intellego Form or MuMe.

Objective: using only existing guidelines and canon spells (from any official book), design a spell that can grant to another person or a group of person, a magical sense.
For those who are not familiar, magical sense spell (for example: InIg 20 Vision's of Heat's Light) have parameters that are R: Per, D: Sun, T: Vision and it will affect only the caster (R: Per - Per is not the same as T:Ind and cannot be expanded to Group).
The target is the sense used to get the new sensory input. Because it is define as Target, it cannot also accomodate Target: Group. refer to page 114 core rulebook for the whole explanation.

First question I have: Why MuMe to grant a magical sense ? It is because you need to transform the mind of the person to grant her this ability ? If yes, why is it not needed when R: Per ? Or is it because you use the caster as the model and then you copy the effect to a group of person ? Then in this case, would MuVi be more appropriate to multiply affected targeted (but I could neither find suitable guidelines).

Second question, which guideline for the base effect ? The closest I found was using MuAn 15; Change an animal in a major unnatural way (and by extrension, it would be appropriate to give it a magical sense).
My argument is the following: Animalem handle everything for an animal, mind and body, Corpus handle the four physical human characteristics (Str, Sta, Qik, Dex), and Mentem the four mental ones, including Per. So even if it looks like granting a magical sense could be considered a physical transformation, it is essentially a mental one.
There are some bordeline cases like Eyes of the Cat, but it is easy to argue that this spell clearly gives cat's eye to the target, that comes with the side benefit of low-light vision.
You could give dog's nose the same ways, so as long as you find an animal that has the sensory ability your are looking for, then that's one way to go.

But for other magical senses (like InIg 20 initially mentionned)... how to do it ?

Constructive feedback welcome, house rules not supported by canon should be avoided as much as possible.

[Complementary info]
It is possible for hermetic magic to easily grant magical sense to somebody else than a mage: he just needs to brew potion (single use item), so it's not like it is impossible for hermetic magic to grant sense, it just seems tricky through single spell.

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If I was cynical, I would say they wrote that in the base book because they figured you couldn't have two different targets (e.g. vision and group), and forgot to revisit the question when they decided you could, in fact, do something like that with mystery durations (e.g. Sun + Held). It's a mix of a flaw in hermetic theory and game design, because clearly, using base parameters with +4 vision and +2 group was too simple an idea.

Ahem.

Now to be slightly more useful, we Family Gathering which alters the perception of a group with MuMe base 15, +1 Intellego. This could be adapted by:
*Using base 15 -uttely change a person's mind (or higher, if the non-group spell would have a higher base)
*Regular range and duration
*Target group
*Usually 2 Requisites for intellego and the appropriate form, for +1 or + 2 total magnitudes depending on whether a non-group version of the spell would be less than 6th magnitude or not (see requisites section - additional effect)

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Also check out the MuMe guidelines box last paragraph on page 150.

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Good catch.

5

Finally!
Thank you Jason, we were many to overlook that last sentence...
So InIg20 Vision of Heat's Sight (Sun,Vision) would become Mu(In)Me(Ig) Base 20, T: Group (+2), R: Touch (+1)...

Gift of Heat's Sight
Mu(In)Me(Ig) 35, T: Group, R: Touch, D: Sun (from the initial personal version)
Grants the ability to see the heat of objets that are human body temperature or hotter, to a Group of people.

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For a single person it's just standard InFo. Put a Range on it.

Thanks, Jason.

Ezechiel, I think you'd have a higher level than that.
-> MuMe +1
-> Touch +1
-> Group +2

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Yes, I forgot that the base level is the same as the Personal version +1, so the base level is 25, then range and target modifier, for a final:
Mu(In)Me(Ig) 40
Quite high, but at least, it should be complete and correct now.

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Level 50. Base 25, +2 Group, +1 Touch, +2 Sun.

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No, no need for +2 Sun, it is already included in the duration of the Personal spell used as reference. If you look at the MuMe guidelines, it mentions possible additional magnitude for Target and Range, not duration.

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No, just no. There is no requirement to have a reference spell when designing a multi person magical sense spell.

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And for giggles...
InMe 30 - Sounds of Honesty
R: Per, T: Hearing (+3), D: Sun (+2), base 15.
Allows the caster to hear the surface thought of people around him.

... which then become the famous curse
Mu(In)Me 60 - Lifting the Veil of Hypocrites
T: Boundary (+4), R: Touch (+1), Base 30 + 1 mag, Ritual.
Grants to all inhabitants of a whole village or a small city the ability to hear what thoughts are crossing people mind. Many villages were burned to cinder.
The initial name was Blessing of Honesty, and was designed by a Jerbiton philosopher's. Convinced that honesty and truth was the best policy, and everybody would be aware of their neighbour's problems, people would show compassion and understanding; the mage thought that such spell would greatly help his community... He was willing to break the Code for the greater good and bringing understanding to a whole town... That did not go exactly as planned.

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p150 "Granting magical sense... base level... granting it to yourself using Intellego."
I am using "reference spell" to identify the Intellego spell that a mage would use to give himself the appropriate sense, which gives me the base level I then used to design the group effect MuMe.

p114 "It is possible... but this requires MuMe with InFo requisites."
Combining these two parts tell you how to grant a group magical sense.

As a mage, you don't need "the reference spell" to invent the group variant (although you will have a bonus), but for me, player, I need to design such spell before I design the group variant.

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You're wrong. You need to reference the base listed, not an example spell. So granting a group "Understand the meaning behind spoken sounds." is Mu(In)Me base 10 rather than InMe5. Then the relevant parameters. Don't use reference spells' overall level, since that will make you pay twice for RDT.

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You also still have to use the highest modifier of the Target. So something that was Taste, Touch, or Smell would be +2 (Group is +2, so it has to be at least this much), while Hearing would be +3 and Vision would be +4.

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As far as I can tell, it's no longer relevant to list the sensory parameter in target - if we did, we wouldn't go through the convoluted process of using MuMe to skip having two targets. You're paying a magnitude on the base, and you're paying magnitudes for requisites too. So the spell is going to complex either way.

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And note, that it has been errataed!

Muto Mentem Guidelines (p. 150): Replace the final introductory paragraph with: "Granting a magical sense to multiple people has a base level one magnitude higher than granting it to one person using Intellego, and has requisites of Intellego and the appropriate Form. The necessary increases to Range and Target increase the level further."

EDIT: I don't have the time to sort out the discussion based on that erratum.

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Consider what you're saying. I could do

Mu(In)Me(Fo) Touch, Group, Sun for a Vision sense at Base+6
InFo Touch, Sun, Vision at Base+7

Why is Group a lower level than Individual?

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Looking at the errata, it seems clear that the MuMe base is the original Base plus the sense, since that is what is needed to grant it to one person. It might not last long, but that's the minimum magnitude to grant it to one person, which the statement requires. You still need to pay for R/T/D. Sure, you could lump Duration in ahead of time and get the same value, but the stats line would be more confusing.

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So you've got InForm Base, +1 touch, +2 Sun, +4 Vision which is Base +7 as you say
Going with MuMe, you've got MuMe Base which corresponds to the InForm Base +1, +1 touch, +2 Sun, +2 group, +1 Intellego, +1 Form (unless Mentem). Which means unless you're emulating InMe for a group target, you're at Base +8 not Base +6. InMe would be base +7 with an extra requisite which is still tougher than the original spell, with additional caveat than most InMe effects except for Reveal the Lingering Spirits have no use for using a higher sense than Hearing, because it's just simpler to hear mental stuff than visualize words.

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Adding that +1 Intellego and +1 Form goes against the rules. Those In and Fo Arts are required to use the MuMe base. An Art requisite required to use a TeFo base does not increase the magnitude of the spell. That's why you don't see things like +1 Animal in Shape of the Woodland Prowler or Cloak of Black Feathers.

There are two kinds of requisite. The first simply allows the spell to have its effect... These requisites do not add to the spell level (p.114)

So you're still at +6 with Group v. +7 with Individual.