Been kicking around this spell as the idea of teleport is a bit further than I want to go. So, first a question...
1) Since it is ReCo35, then each use of the spell causes Warping... yes/no? Or is that only for folks who are a) not the caster or b) not made part of the spell at invention?
This doesn't stop the magi but it definitely stops others from bouncing around.
Evolving Idea
I was thinking of making each spell specific to the Arcane Connection. Therefore, you have to invent a spell to tie that small pebble to your lab. When you decide to make another spell for your friend's house, you need to invent the spell again with the new location. Lose the Arcane Connection? Need to invent a new spell with a new AC even if it's the same location. /insert some mumbo jumbo about specific qualities of arcane connection and the need to make it a 'pure' one, stir in gobbledygook.
It slows things down a bit and keeps someone from learning one spell and hopping about.
ReCo35 is Personal, no warping. If you FFM it to Touch/40, it will warp the target. If you don't want to warp your 3 friends, you'll have to develop a Touch/40 version for each of them.
Even a personal version will warp if you are not using a formulaic. Only "formulaic" fulfill the "specifically designed for", since you do not design spontaneous.
I know most SGs are only confortable with magi up to 10 hermetic years, and tend to restart a game when the players reach that hermetic age but I do not feel so limited nor frightened by higher power.
Thus, spontaneously casting levels 30 (or more, ie those which warp) is something I see quite often, especially in focus fields or even from Diedne characters.
Having run rather extended sagas, I've rarely seen magi able to spontane spells above level 20 or so outside their specific specialty. I have dealt with FFM magi with the leap and atleast one teleportation specialist who probably could spontane cast something like a Leap of Homecomming at range Touch (or beyond) - though he never did. That's not the point. The point is that I would see these sort of effects only from specialists (where you have to expect them) or from magi that have taken the time/resources to learn either the spell or buy a device - again expected.
IMAO (and you milage may well vary!) magi old enought to spontane spells that high, tend to avoid dong so, whether because of the botch dice or because they have other solutions.
This say, I openly admit I haven't seen Diedne Magic in a PC yet, so that might throw me off something fierce.
Even Life-Linked Spont. exacts a cost in fatigue that makes 8th magnitude spells possible, but overly punishing for most magi.
Since it is ReCo35, then each use of the spell causes Warping... yes/no? Or is that only for folks who are a) not the caster or b) not made part of the spell at invention?
This doesn't stop the magi but it definitely stops others from bouncing around.
Evolving Idea
I was thinking of making each spell specific to the Arcane Connection. Therefore, you have to invent a spell to tie that small pebble to your lab. When you decide to make another spell for your friend's house, you need to invent the spell again with the new location. Lose the Arcane Connection? Need to invent a new spell with a new AC even if it's the same location. /insert some mumbo jumbo about specific qualities of arcane connection and the need to make it a 'pure' one, stir in gobbledygook.
It slows things down a bit and keeps someone from learning one spell and hopping about. end of quote
Anyway, yes to warping when the rules say so. For the other matter, Cuchulainshound is right.
No to making characters keep having to re-learn a spell. Why? Once characters can use this, let them! If all the characters want to avoid warping, they will all have to invent their own spell/pay someone to invent one specifically for them. It doesn't unbalance the game, it just changes the way stories develop. There have been plenty of suggestions made on this forum for SGs to use (search is your friend) to deal with teleport and other fast-travel. Same thing happens when very fast flying spells are invented - how will you limit that? No AC needed for flight. Don't limit your players - Ars Magica is excellent for SGs coming up with new stories as characters' capabilities change.
Gilarius
PS Spontaneous casting record by one of my magi: 240th level...(how many botch dice did I risk? One per pawn of vis...over 160!)
After several experiences of previous groups of Ars Magica, my players and I have decided that teleportation is an unbalancing element of the game, because it destroys a very important part of our stories: the travel. And in our practical view, we can't imagine how an Order of Hermes with this super-fast type of travel can still have needs of Redcaps.
But we don't want to completely delete teleportation form the spell guidelines, so we use two simple house rules for re-dimension its importance:
teleportation is always Ritual (this means that teleportation it's expensive, risky, slow, and can't be put in enchanted item unless you build a Mercere's Portal or have the mystery of Hermetic Empowerment)
teleportation needs of casting requisites (if you don't use casting requisites, you teleport only yourself naked)
I don't agree with this, a spontaneous spell is designed on the spot specifically for your immediate need. As such, there should be no warping. If there were restrictions on designing a spell for a specific target, if you needed to study the target in your lab, then I might agree. But as it stands...
However you are not reading RAW:
page 168 is clear: "designing an effect for a particular target requires, In hermetic terms, that a special version of a formulaic spell be invented".
I'm not sure that means unequivocally that spontaneous spells cannot be tailored "on the spot" to the specific individual.
Note that in our group we do use your interpretation (one cannot taylor spontaneous spells); but it took a lot of discussion and none of us ever though it was 100% clear. I think it would be worthy errata material... maybe somene wants to write David Chart about it?
That is a good reason for not liking teleporting. If it destroys the sorts of stories that you want to tell.
Another solution, of course, is to tell stories that are not really about the travel, but what the characters do when they get to their destination, or situations whereby the story travels to visit the characters. In my current saga, the stories are rarely about travel, and the characters don't currently, usually have access to teleport spells. So, we have a lot of "one week later, after a very boring walk, you arrive at your destination. You are not dead.". If the characters could teleport it wouldn't really make any difference except that the magi would be much more willing to travel, because they wouldn't waste so much time away from their labs wandering about.
Finally, if you are travelling to a location which the magi don't have an Arcane Connection for, you can still tell travel stories. In which case the story is probably about the grogs travelling to the destination. And then the magi using Arcane Connections to the grogs to travel to the final destination once the grogs reach it.
a) not everybody can (or wants to) teleport.
b) not every location can necessarily be teleported to.
c) even if the travel is instant, achieving something at the destination takes time.
d) the Redcaps can teleport too (with suitable items).
Thanks for refreshing my memory, but you should have read further. You may be right in the general case but not for Personal spells, as both the first and last sentence support my POV: "unless they themselves were responsible" and "neither cast by the target".
Here we did something similar to Ugluk. Long range teleport (sight range or above distance) is Ritual. We did not put an extra rule for requisites since this is how teleport works anyway in the RAW, so no need to say it again Short distance teleports are perfectly fine, but no redcaps making their whole tribunal tour in 3 hours or going to Jerusalem to check what is happening around there before going to bed in Ireland
I think that a close reading of the Rules would show that to "invent" a spell means what a mage does in the lab.
The first line under "Inventing Spells" (p 95) reads..."Inventing a spell is more difficult then learning one...", (and few would argue that "learning" a spell is less difficult than spont'ing one.)Not that you couldn't houserule something that works far better for your Troupe than the RAW, but that's what it would be, a houserule.
Short distance teleports are perfectly fine, but no redcaps making their whole tribunal tour in 3 hours or going to Jerusalem to check what is happening around there before going to bed in Ireland