Wondering if I may have overlooked some rules that apply here.
Considering giving an NPC Mage a Talisman in the form of a braided leather cord/rope, bounded by ferrule.
Say it is 6 yards long, and is enchanted to move according to the image's silent command while the mage is holding one end of it.
How fast can it move? How dextrous?
Presumably based on the image's Finesse, but at the time of enchanting, or the time of using the Talisman?
Can the mage deliver Touch range spells to whatever valid target the Talisman can stretch to?
Drawing circles for Circle target wards. Could this Talisman allow the mage to inscribe a 6 yard radius circular ward? Presuming it moves fast enough.
I’d probably use snake speeds for something like that. Its dexterity would be related to current finesse of the user.
It could deliver touch range spells but the attack would require characteristic+finesse rather than characteristic+weapon skill (as it would be with a staff, for instance) or characteritic+brawl (for unarmed/no talisman/“improvised weapon” talismans). A major hindrance here is the ReAn effect would also need to penetrate MR where the staff talisman using the weapon skill would not.
I do not think ot could be used to inscribe a circle.
I think it is a bit more complicated. Firstly, you can either use the magic (finesse) or use it as a whip (single weapon) to hit. (Unless the magic effect prevents its function as a mundane whip, but I see no reason why you would want to design it that way.)
If you use the magic, you need to make a concentration roll, as you have to concentrate on the device effect and your spell at the same time.
I beg to differ. Consider the analogous example [core:86]
A normal rock thrown by magic stops at her skin or clothes. The maga feels the warning that something has been resisted, and also feels the rock touching her (before it falls), but she is not struck by the rock. It is as if the rock had been moved up against her as slowly and carefully as possible.
I.e. MR does not prevent touching.
I think it is possible in theory, but extremely difficult to pull off in practice.
The talisman's touch should be as good as the magus' when tracing the circle, but either you need to exactly trace the prescribed circle, which takes incredible finesse, or you need to make a cord which can actually draw it.
How, then, can the maga feel the rock touching her like as RAW says?
I think the reasoning behind the example is that the stone is not magical and is not resisted. It is the velocity which is magical and thus resisted. Thus the stone hits but with zero velocity and hence no energy.
I was vaguely influenced by the second set of Amber books, where Merlin son of Corwin has a sentient, animated strangling cord called Frakir as his Familiar and/or Talisman.
The way I was describing this hypothetical Talisman, think of it as a very long shoelace. It hadn't occurred to me someone else might consider it a "whip".
I probably should have said "trace a circle" rather than "inscribe a circle", but I also specified this leather cord/shoe-lace was capped with a metal ferrule, so I was envisioning it might be sharp enough to scratch a line. Something like ancient surveyers connecting a cord to a peg and using it to measure a circle of constant radius.
BTW since all Talismans are, by definition, enchanted, are people saying that means that they can't be used as weapons against any being with Might or Magic Resistance, unless some Penetration effect was enchanted in?
I was working under the presumption they were an extension of the mage's Touch, so if the mage can poke a dragon in the eye with his fingers, he should also be able to do it with a Talisman he is carrying and moving by muscle power.
Sorry, I just can't imagine why anyone would use braided leather for shoelaces
Anyway, a shoelace can be used as a whip. Not a good one, but still.
I am pretty sure people are saying that. And I don't like it. That you suggest a Penetration effect to make it work as a mundane weapon, demonstrates that it is bonkers. However, the pink dot loophole only became a thing because of this.
Because the rock comes close enough without touching to allow the tactile species traveling at an increased velocity to penetrate and be felt by the skin?
At that point, I wonder if it's not better to enchant the circle ward as a invested power in the talisman and just activate the talisman to create the circle rather than enchant the talisman to do the drawing while the magi is casting and go bonkers trying to figure out the Finesse and whether you're drawing the circle faster.
For the record, I do agree that it does touch, but on the other hand felt I needed to offer an answer to the question that was asked.
Which is in its own way very in line with medieval philosophae.
Occam, after all, has not yet been born in setting.
Things moved by magic can cross the resistance, but their motion cannot, unless the spell penetrates the magic resistance.
The talisman as an object is not magical in the sense of p.85f: you can indeed lightly touch another magus with it without having to penetrate magic resistance. That it is moved by magic does not make it magical in that sense.
But there is another big problem here, if that talisman is moved by magic to deliver a Touch Range spell or effect: ArM5 p.111 Ranges.
The range of a spell is the distance to the nearest part of the target of the spell. Thus, if the caster is touching the external wall of the room, he can cast a Target: Room Corpus spell on the peole within at Touch Range.
So the caster must cast the spell, while she is touching the target with the tailsman. Having just touched it at some time during spell casting with the talisman, which then fell off, does not suffice. And pressing the talisman against the target with magic is resisted.
Is it? I mean I could wrap the item around someone and not be resisted, so long as it did not do damage... I can bury someone in magically create clay...
I disagree- if a magical bridge falls on a maga it stops and does no damage, but it is still there, meaning the maga cannot simply walk through it, the same way it will bear their weight if they walk on it. Consequently if instead of a bridge you drop magical wet clay on a magus it will part, it will not get them wet, but it will obstruct their path- in all directions if so required. And like the magical rock which is thrown, it would be touching them.
The magical rock that is thrown will not touch them:
A magical rock thrown at the maga bounces off her resistance, and the maga feels nothing beyond the warning that something has been successfully resisted.
The (p.86) magical bridge example has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.
