The mechanical effects of wards and the different functions between circle and personal wards.
Circle Wards:
Magical Wards section (114) states "Wards with a Circle target are of particular note. They prevent things warded against that are within the circle from leaving, and prevent things warded against that are outside from entering. Warded things cannot act across the circle, no matter which side they are on, nor can they damage the circle, directly or indirectly"
Confusion has resulted from this:
- Can a human being standing 10 paces away, shoot an arrow into a Circle Ward Against Mundane Humans?
- Can a demon, summoned into a demon circle ward, use an ability on an eligible target standing outside?
Personal Wards:
Some of the effects of personal wards need to be inferred from canon spell descriptions, rather than explicitly stated. The list below is a collection of ward guidelines and implementations I can remember, attempting to highlight how that implementation varies.
A general question - can wards be penetrated by spells with high penetration? For example, if my target has a 0 penetration Ward Against Wood on themselves, and I cast Dance of the Staves with +100 penetration, does it hit? The wood is mundane and should be effected by the spell, but there is another spell interaction present.
ReAn 2: Protect the target from animal attacks implies a user could still ride a horse but be defended from a bear attack at the same time. Is this correct?
ReAq 5: Ward Against Mundane Water spell "Break the Oncoming Wave" in ArM5 implies that only water approaching you is stopped, but a water skin on you isn't launched away to the barrier. Additionally, the spell description states it stops magical water, but the guideline is mundane water.
ReCo 15: Ward Against Human Beings has only one example I can remember - Repulse the Unwanted Attention (ReCo30) on MoH p.95. It states, "Warded individuals cannot act across a ward in any manner, therefore if she is attacked, her opponents’ blows always go wide, causing them to miss. She
is not protected from thrown weapons or missiles, though." - Is this the intention for all ReCo personal wards - that the user is immune to melee attacks with weapons from the warded person, but can be attacked at range? Does this carry over to circle, as addressed above?
ReHe 15: Ward Against Mundane Plant Products. The spell Ward Against Wood states, "The caster is protected from non-enchanted wood, so that none of it can actually contact his body. If he is walking on a wooden surface, he is actually suspended very slightly above it." Can a warded user hold a wooden hafted weapon?
ReIG 4: Control a Fire in a Slightly Unnatural Fashion (not stated as a ward) - Ward Against Heat and Flames (ArM5 143) is the only stated ward that has a damage threshold that can overcome it. Is Ignem unique in this aspect? Can other wards be overcome by higher magnitude effects?
ReTe 5: Ward a Target Against Dirt - Similar to the ReHe guidelines, can a target warded against metal use a metal weapon? Can they choose to interact with a metal doorknob?
Thank you for reading this long post. I am new to Ars Magica, but trying to figure out clearly how wards worked was (and is) challenging for me, so I just wanted to help collect points for discussion in the future.