Learned Magicians and Vis

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

I am trying to stat up a SG semi-npc Gifted Learned Magician for a new saga, and I am wondering about how to implement the Succurro Magicam Guidline: Detect the Presence of Vis.

Since the only allowed targets for thier charms are Personal, Eye, Touch and Voice, they cannot use magical senses beyond touch.

Does that mean that beyond physically touching an object to see if it has Vis, the only other alternative is that documented here:

Uncovering the Hidden Prize
(Succurro, Magicam, Level 20)
Range: Touch. Duration: Season. Target: Boundary.
This amulet allows the caster to detect the presence of any usable forms of Vis within the boundaries specified when the amulet was created. Occasionally additional magnitudes may be required if the magician wishes to affect a particularly large area.
(Base 1, +3 Season, +4 Boundary)

in which case, how does the information get to the person who crafted the amulet?

Bob

Also

2

Could simply cast it with Voice range, diameter duration. In this instance it would simply reveal all the vis within voice range, as appropriate to the sigil, I imagine. Making it glow, for example.

3

Let's ignore the haystack game of there's already a piece of vis somewhere in there, you get no useful information.

When it goes from none to some, the whole structure lights up. Or only a designated part of the building lights up. Or something else more discrete.

I don't think you can make the vis object react, because magical senses come from Birna. You have to move it back out and see if the structure is now empty of vis.

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4

that's sort of what I thought, so the boundary charm seems pretty useless in practice. Also I can;t seem to find a guideline to let them know types of vis, so I'm not sure how they can boost thier charms with in in practice. Seems odd...

5

You're confounding Range and Target. For example, if I cast a deadly PeCo spell at Voice it doesn't kill every person within Voice, just one unless I bump up the Target to Group/Room/etc.

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6

First of all, note that the "Touch" that Learned Magicians can use is the Range, not the Target (of magics granting magical-senses). So, Learned Magicians cannot grant magical senses at all in the "Hermetic" way, although they can obviously use Succurro Fortunam to grant a Magical Virtue that grants a magical sense.

I assume that the guideline "Detect the Presence of Vis" means "Detect the Presence of Vis in the Target" (just like the "Provide a bonus" guidelines mean "Provide a bonus to the Target"). So yes, you already have to suspect that the Target contains vis; then you can check your guess at R:Eye, Touch, or Voice with a Charm (in which case the Target must be Ind, or Group); or at R:Touch with an Amulet or Charta (in which case the Target can be Ind, Group, Bloodline, Structure, or Boundary).

I'd just say that the amulet/charta vibrates, changes colour, etc. In general - this is true for Hermetic magic, and other magic traditions "inherit" it unless otherwise noted - magics of detection are not necessarily restricted to silently informing the caster and the caster alone. Spells like Frosty Breath of the Frozen Lie make it clear that purely cosmetic effects that make the information available to any onlooker are possible without any extra requisites.

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