A quick note: rapid growth has definitely a higher baseline. When you combine several effects, you should talk the highest as the baseline, and tack on the magnitude modifiers for the rest.
But the "bring a plant to maturity" guidelines are for existing plants where the induced growth is a permanent effect. This spell creates a plant and the size modifiers cover it's final extent. From that point of view the growth is actually slower and it requires feeding to sustain it.
If you are saying that the growth is purely cosmetic, it's a good counterpoint (I had not paid a lot of attention at the total size calculation); still, almost all the effects you list deserve a higher base level than 1.
I do conservation volunteering so I'm all too familiar with brambles. A single plant weighing only a few pounds can have canes many feet long capable of snaring several people. If you aren't careful the canes will whip about an rip your face off. If they encounter a good spot to root the canes will act as runners so that spot becomes a centre of growth while still connected to the original roots so you end up with great tangles of blackberry that are technically all one plant. You'd need more magnitudes using roses or hawthorn or blackthorn but blackberry bramble is the right tool for the job (Ivy would be pretty good too if you gave it fangs).And blood is good fertilizer.
There is room for more magnitudes but I don't think they're needed.
I agree that Target: Group makes things a little vaguer. But you seem to be saying that a Group spell can only affect targets that the caster is aware of, while Ravenscroft seems to be saying that it can only affect targets that "Hermetic Magic" can detect. Those aren't the same thing (by his own words).
(And as it happens, I don't agree with either of them. Regarding the caster-must-be-aware version: A blindfolded magus is being harassed by a group of ruffians. One of them grabs the magus's shoulder. A perfect time to cast that Touch/Group version of Call to Slumber, right! But will it work on all the ruffians, if the magus doesn't know who's currently around him? Objections of the flavor "but he can hear some of them etc." won't address the fundamental issue: if one of the ruffians joined the group quietly after the magus was blindfolded and is just standing there, within the group's physical boundaries but unknown to the magus, will the spell fail to affect him?)
I think it was someone here on the forum that found the reasoning for it, as RAW isnt clear at all...
Mmm, i really need to find it again and this time write it down properly! Anyway i think the original basis is the ReAq Base 3 that allows you to change water into ice or steam. I dont remember if you needed the Re requisite for creating ice directly though.
Hmm, ill have to check my spell listings... Mmm, seems i´ve used either CrAq with Base 5 or Cr(Re)Aq Base 4 depending on exact effect to create ice directly... So, essentially either 1 magnitude higher than for creating water or with the Rego requisite.
Afraid i cant do better than that though, quick search on the forum yielded nothing obvious.
Yes but it doesnt cause fatigue or anything like it. Its only non-cosmetic effect is that it causes the target to be unable to hold stuff with the affect hand.
Not just trotting(though mostly probably, some walking now and then and a little galopp a few times) and both horse and me started out very spry, and ended very, veery tired...
But that horse(Sammy) was never happy unless it had a rider and was out and about somewhere. It was always so eager to get started that if you were taking to long with saddle or reins, he would try to help(and if he wasnt one of the horses going out he would sulk and sniff even if he had been out for hours just before and was dead tired already).
And its the only horse i´ve EVER seen that actually managed to get the bridle on by himself... You hold it up in front of him and he would wriggle into it until it was in the right place... Lovely horse, best i ever tried, so eager and alert you never had to do something twice.
With a less spry horse im sure i would never even have tried something like it. Lol, first horse i rode, he would probably have walked back home to the stable no matter what i did after an hour or so. :mrgreen:
His name, Domino was very apt indeed, he was in command!
That much? I could certainly not have done either of THOSE for that long! More like a very brisk walk on not quite even ground, or a regular walk up a not too steep slope.
Mmm i wonder though wether you need an In requisite? As its actively "sensing" while acting.
Or if it has enough of that naturally. Not sure.
Anyway, its a nasty and very neat spell.
The spell would affect the persons the magi touches and any others that they touch up to the limit of the spell.
If it was Voice Range, it would affect those persons the magi "know of" so anyone he cant hear or somehow know is there isnt affected.
Or something like that is how i think i prefer it at least.
For a Touch/Group spell, only one member of the group needs to be touched to affect them all - Range is the range to the nearest part of the Target.
Affecting water in sealed , non-transparent containers and not placed in a Room or Structure.
Touch will affect the container , not the water.
Voice will affect the water if the sound of the magus voice is transmitted through the container.
Sight will not work unless InAq is used. Based on Hunt for the Wild Herb , page 136 (ArM 05).
Seek the Hidden Water
InAq , Level 20
R: Pers , D:Sun , T: Sight
A Perception stress roll of 06+ allows you to find water anywhere within sight.
The SG/Troupe may decide you need a sample of water from the same place as the water you are looking for.
If the army filled their canteens from the River Severn , you need a sample of that water to find it.
Base 02: Get an image of water within range , +02 Sun , +04 Sight
I don't like it for one reason: You're overexpanding the cosmetic thing, so, IMO, the description is a big NO.
So, to me, keep the basic description, with your parameters.
How to put it? As an extension of wreaths of foul smoke, it is fine. But you utterly change the "cosmetic" appearance in order to, in fact, cast a spell that has every aspect of a PeIg spell with a cosmetic white mist, only with CrAu. What you're doing is akin to taking the best guideline for every effect, and saying everything else is purely cosmetic. I disagree.
A bigger version of the Foul Smoke with variant cosmetics would, for exemple, have a toxic white mist that is slighlty cold, but that's about it. You don't get to specify that a chill saps people strenght, not that the mist is chilling: It's the Air that's bad. If you also want it to be chilling (without an additionnal effect), use a free ignem requisite.
To take an exemple, that's like taking a Pilum of Fire and saying that, in your variant, you're spraying an acid that burns everything, which is a "purely cosmetic effect". No. CrAq has guidelines for acid, and you should use these for an "acid" spell. The cosmetic variants of your pilum could be the shape of the fire, its color, but it would still be fire that burned the target, not acid, nor, say, a corosive mist (Use Auram for that, probably with an Ignem requisite)
Wreaths of foul smoke uses the create noxious air based effect (sulfurous fumes in that case) so I would have no problem with this spell having an unnatural chill as part of the effect if it's because the mist is some sort of volatile vapor like ammonia. Or if it where merely generally noxious air causing the fatigue damage and the cold where part of your sigil.
If instead the spell creates very cold but otherwise wholesome air then your talking a slightly different effect. I would say that could be considered a sever weather phenomenon created in an unnatural way or a PeDo ignem effect or both.
Yeah, so if the group of villains are spread out by a few hundred meters including some of them out of sight, or in places where they would be IMPOSSIBLE to hit directly, they still get hit...
That is a really terrible rule interpretation.
That's what they get for associating with other villains 
Hah! 
My statement is not an interpretation at all, but practically a word-for-word quote of the first sentence in the Ranges section on page 111 of ArM5. Perhaps you meant your own interpretation, which directly contradicts the second sentence of the description of the Group Target on page 113 of ArM5, which says "The components of the group must be close together in space...."
As long as the villains are near one another, you only need to see one of them to cast the spell.
Xavi
Not an interpretation, a cynical comment exactly on the "close together" thing. "Close" is very different depending on what you compare with. Its an open invitation to munchkinism. Which is why i say it IS a terrible interpretation of the rules.
Which is why i go with the, if its Touch then there needs to be a touch connection. And even THAT can still be abused by using the ground or the air as intermediary. Essentially, you dont need Voice or Sight at all, only Touch.
IF you stretch the definitions only very slightly that way.
Doesn't that break the Limit of Arcane Connection?
Shouldn't the Group be defined as only those you can sense?