How does the Aegis work

Games Discussion Ars Magica
103

I've reviewed what the books say.
From HoH:TL, section of the code of hermes describing Wizard's War:
"During a Wizard War both parties can attack each other’s life and property without fear of
prosecution. However, they still may be held to account for any collateral damage. A magus cannot legally attack property in which his opponent has shared ownership, such as covenant buildings, vis sites and covenant books. If a combatant endangers the property or lives of other magi, they forfeit their immunity with respect to those magi. Many covenant sodales are extremely quick to exploit such an opportunity.
A combatant is free to enter his opponent’s sanctum and destroy its contents. Any shared property stored there during a Wizard War is considered forfeit"

From HoH:S, "The Code defines Wizard’s War as a conflict between exactly two wizards. Most wizards in 1220 belong to covenants, which offer protection in the event of Wizard’s War. Although Wizard’s War allows the combatants to step outside the protection of the Code, it does not grant the authority to violate the rights of other wizards. A combatant in Wizard’s War may not lawfully destroy or steal property belonging to wizards other than his opponent, scry on non-combatant magi, or attack non-combatant magi who get in his way. This means a combatant in Wizard’s War can often escape his adversary by hiding inside his covenant. Not only does he gain the protection of any Aegis of the Hearth the covenant may have, his sodales can deny his opponent entry to the covenant.
If the enemy attempts to enter without permission, covenant members may use appropriate force to drive him out (and may be entitled to bring a complaint against him at Tribunal). While they should not simply kill the intruder out of hand, the Code does allow magi to defend their territory.
[...]
Another option is to declare Wizard’s War against the enemy’s sodales or other allies. Each Wizard’s War is legally defined as a conflict between two magi, but there is nothing to prevent a magus from being involved in multiple Wizard’s Wars simultaneously. It is possible to declare separate Wizard’s Wars against every member of a covenant. This allows one to attack the
covenant with legal impunity"

I draw from this that wars against an enemy wizard in another covenant's aegis without declaring war on the entire covenant are things that happen, and that the attacking magi isn't always invited in. There are situations where a covenant can expel a member, or that the attacking magi knocks at the door, gets issued a token and gets escorted into the attacked wizard's sanctum, but there are situations where magi knowingly sneak in and try to get arround the covenant's defenses - I suspect this is a lot easier in a weak Aegis. While a covenant can fight back against the intrusion in common areas / slow him down / impede him, they can't legally slay the attacking magi so long unless they can somehow claim forfeit immunity. So you could have a covenant raising walls of stone, throwing coils of entangling plants, and otherwise trying to physically restrain the intruding magi, but pilums of fire are out so long as the intruding magi doesn't otherwise attack. And most likely, if the attacker reaches the sanctum of the magi who has been declared war on, they're to stop whatever it is they were doing to slow him down so that he may proceed with his war despite the lack of invites. With a high penetration flight / invisibility, it may be possible to reach the sanctum without being caught, and I think that would be legal so long as no one can claim you're using your invisibility to scry on noncombatant magi. On the other hand, destroying the aegis to get through without an invitation is a case where the attacker has forfeited immunity and can be legally slain on covenant ground, or be charged with an hermetic crime even if he escapes. That is, unless he declared war on the entire covenant. Mind you, this is easier in covenants with well layed out geographical separations. If you know you're attacking a sanctum covering the entire third level of the tower to the right, just fly in through a window if you think you can fight without the token. If the covenant is labyrinthine, trying to sneak in is likely not a great option.

Yes, I think we want to clarify it, and I think what you've written is an important step in that direction. There are one or two tidbits to chance, but nothing huge.

104

I think fundamentally there is a difference, regardless of how the society is envisioned (and there may be more visions of how hermetic society is arranged than there are players. I know I have several such models that I switch between for different games). Fundamentally with the oAoTH a magus could enter a foreign covenant without invitation, whether the intent was to retrieve an arcane connection, ask for an invitation without being able to arrange it before their visit, etc. and be weakened in magic but protected by the code. In the revised version they are simply unable to enter as if they were a creature with magical might. Being regulated to the same category as things that magi summon is a significant difference.

4 Likes
105

I consider this a plus. It means that those magi who have become creatures of Might (e.g. via Merinita Becoming or via the Great Elixir), or who have always been creatures of Might (like a Redcap Loamwalker, RoP:M p.92) have a much easier time blending in.

2 Likes
106

I think any clarification, or revision that makes things clearer, is better than nothing.
Long-standing troupes who have found what works for them are not going to lose anything - they'll just keep playing that way no matter what. Newer troupes, or those who are still "seeking the way", will have a more robust base to play-as-is or to tweak with their own house rules.

That said, some clarifications and revisions are better than others :slight_smile:

2 Likes
107

Just like to echo @ezzelino, I like the clarified version of the Aegis, and think it fits in well with my version of how the Aegis binds together the magi of the covenant.

Bob

108

After reading David's version upthread, I think I'd prefer it to be looser or less powerful. It blocking the Longevity Ritual or Familiar bonds seems a bit excessive to my tastes. I tend to think of an Aegis as not quite that degree of a steel wall, and this version feels a bit too effective at protecting its inhabitants.

1 Like
109

I'm not really a fan of some of the proposed changes, mostly what happens with Longevity Rituals, Familiar Bonds, Talisman Bonds, etc. I would be much happier if those were treated more like how Wind of Mundane Silence treats magical things.

But a revision would help a lot. I wrote a guide for AotH a while ago, and sorting through it carefully was a mess, and that mess was without additional statements in later books, which didn't make it any less a mess. What would make it much more playable is if every effect were to work basically the same way or nearly the same way, effects from outside as well as from inside and regardless of source (spell, power, item, etc.).

Consider something really simple like:

The level of AotH is subtracted from the penetration of all effects from unrecognized sources created outside and sent into it or created inside it. If this reduces the penetration below 0, the effect cannot affect anything other than its source.

Leaving aside the specific numerical amount and having to fine-tune some wording, this would have roughly the same effect as with the current AotH while clearing up many things (such as items). It wouldn't screw around with supernatural beings' inherent stuff nor with Longevity/Talisman/Familiar stuff (the bonds would still function on themselves). It would let constant-effect items remain while being weakened, too, which is one of the other big uglies of the current combo. (E.g. While you cannot break the Ring of Power normally, you just walk into an AotH and break it with ease there. Of course, it still leaves intact the whole travel-east-then-west-quickly-to-end-constant trick for breaking it.)

110

If you make the bonds the source of the Familiar Bond magic (which is right, IIRC), they are unable to affect the magus or the familiar. Which is a little hard to adjudicate. It also seems to knock down Parma, because that affects incoming magic, not the magus.

"Fine-tuning the wording" on these things is always a lot harder than it looks…

I am not at all sure what to do here. The problem as I see it is as follows. AotH, as currently written, does not actually say what everyone (pretty much) agrees it does. However, if you try to expand it to just do what it should, without changing anything, you end up with a lot of complex wording and exceptions, and something that is really hard for new players to understand. On the other hand, if you change things, you are changing things, and some of those changes will have substantial consequences. And we are not talking about a new edition — we are talking about errata.

So, I'm not sure I should do anything about this, but I do want to keep worrying at it for a bit.

A concrete question. Should a magus be completely unhindered in casting an R:Per spell to turn himself into a dragon inside a covenant? If not, how do we distinguish different R:Per effect? If so, what happens when the dragon breathes fire? When it punches a wall? When someone hits it?

What about R:Per "I am completely undetectable" spells? Should a spy be completely unhindered by the Aegis?

These are not rhetorical questions — I am trying to feel out the space that we have available to make something that works simply without annoying to many people.

2 Likes
111

I would say no to this. The Aegis should be a pretty big impediment to those who didn't cast it/not given a token.

Bob

2 Likes
112

I would say yes.

Fire-breathing and wall-punching are resisted by the Aegis, because the transformed magus is magical, right?
See:

If he got Might by the transformation, his very presence needs to penetrate the Aegis or he is isolated/thrown out.
See:

If somebody hits the dragon/magus, he hits the scales of the dragon.

113

I never got why R: Personal spells didn't need to penetrate in the first place?
It's exactly the sort of odd anomaly @ezzelino wants to expunge from the game in general.To me it implies a rather (to quote) "unmythic" sort of invisible force field surrounding the maga.

Why not swap it for a note that "When casting spells on yourself, you will need to penetrate your own Parma or lower it - but that for most magi, this isn't really a concern because of sympathetic modifiers to penetration, see p. 84, as most wizards have ample access to Arcane Connects to themselves at all times." or something similar. I always found that exception to be weird and causing more problems than it solved.

Absolutely not!

114

This is not making any decision easier!

This is a different issue. The issue here is with trying to carve out a coherent exception from the Aegis for Longevity Rituals and Familiar Bonds.

115

Since you asked ... no, he should not be completely unhindered.
It should be "hard" to do (possibly, hard only if the Aegis penetrates his MR).

But more importantly, regardless of whether it's hard or easy, and whether the Aegis has to penetrate or not, the same should be true of every R:Per effect, or stuff becomes difficult to adjudicate.
No exceptions.

1 Like
116

Why on Earth would you..?! Could you perhaps be persuaded to elaborate on your reasoning?

Exactly.

No-one should get might from any non-permanent transformation, ever.

Also, other being with a might score do not appear to be ejected from the Aegis. They either penetrate it or they don't.

117

Fine with me! But I still thought it should be addressed because I vaguely recall exceptions.

This contradicts my quote from David's proposal above.

118

Kinda-sorta. The Longevity issue can be tucked away as a R: Personal effect, which currently do not need to penetrate. And you were the one who brought up the example of the dragon.

That being said, I'd be completely comfortable with an Aegis getting a full page dedicated to itself, detailing exactly how it works and how it's an exception to all of the usual rules. It's an oddity - let it be an oddity. As long as it's clearly explained what it does, I'll love that tiny extra "complexity".
I know @ezzelino extolled the virtue of simplicity in design and he's not wrong. EXCEPT in game design, where a certain complexity is desirable indeed arguably the whole point of playing a game.

119

The one I quoted to indicate that I disagree, but also to indicate the origin?
I'm afraid I don't see you point?

120

Hmm - maybe I first fall back to a proposal of mine in this thread.
It implies, that Hermetic magi are trusted to a certain degree under an Aegis - and maybe even wear the symbol of this trust, a ring, on their finger. (Yep, this could be removed - also with the finger - during Tribunal. ...)

Of course, if a spell on that somewhat trusted person (or her familiar) affects not only maga or familiar, but the protected covenant by magic, the Aegis resists that.

121

This one:

122

I do not think such a coherent exception can be carved, without creating a lot more pain.

Suppose you carve out a niche for Longevity Rituals. Ok, how about characters who use one of the many other longevity-enhancing methods in the game? Say, a Criamon on the last station the path of the Body (HoH:MC p.65)? Or a character having obtained Immortality of the Forest (GotF:p.38)? I am sure people who designed those assumed they'd behave equally in an Aegis, regardless of what the Aegis did. So, treat them differently, and you break a lot of stuff. Treat them equally, and the niche creeps outwards, because there's no reason to exclude from the niche the Criamon's ability to regenerate lost Characteristic points that's part of the same immortality-granting power. And soon enough, there's lots and lots of stuff in the niche, some of which has no relationship at all with Longevity, but "connected" to the Longevity Ritual by a long path of almost imperceptible steps.

1 Like